Andy Kirk reckons Brechin City can still improve after maintaining their perfect start in the Breedon Highland League with victory against Buckie Thistle.
It means the Hedgemen – along with Brora Rangers – have won five out of five in the league as the Jags dropped their first points of the campaign.
Brechin boss Kirk said: “Every result is important, no matter who we’re playing we try to give the best performance we can and if we do hopefully it will allow us to win the game.
“It was a tough game against a good team, but the biggest thing for me is the improvement week after week.
“We keep trying to improve all the time. There’s definitely a lot more to come, they’re an honest group who work really hard.
“There are players who are capable of playing a lot of different positions and there are young players who will get better through experience.
“We started the game well and it’s about recognising when you’re on top and you get opportunities to be ruthless and increase your lead.
“One-nil probably feels a bit closer than what it was, we’re pleased but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
Jags gaffer bullish
Buckie manager Graeme Stewart admitted his side were second best on the day, but remains bullish about their title hopes.
He added: “We didn’t play well and I thought they wanted it more.
“Their defenders had an easy day and their striker was able to take the ball down and play, our aggression at the back and up front wasn’t there.
“But I’m probably more confident now that we’ve got a good chance of winning the league, to be honest.
“I thought we were terrible all over the pitch and only got beat 1-0, to be honest, we should have got beaten more heavily.
“If that’s the best team so far then I think we’ll do all right.
“We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing and stick to the way we want to play, a lot of things went wrong in this game and that won’t happen often for us.”
Early opener
Brechin started the contest in blistering fashion and made a fourth-minute breakthrough.
From a Buckie corner, they swiftly broke upfield with Jordan Northcott’s ball in behind releasing McGrath and the striker got the break of the ball when rounding goalkeeper Balint Demus before slotting into the empty net.
Two minutes later Marc Scott had the ball in the net but the offside flag saved the Jags.
Demus blocked a Fraser MacLeod effort and McGrath fired over from 20 yards as Brechin kept pressing.
Buckie’s only moments of note in the final third in the first half were a Kevin Fraser header gathered by goalkeeper Lenny Wilson and Josh Peters’ cross-cum shot from an acute angle which clipped the top of the crossbar.
The Jags competed better after the interval but chances for both sides were hard to come by.
With little over 20 minutes left Brechin should have made it 2-0. Buckie had failed to clear from a free-kick and Nathan Cooney slipped in Jamie Bain.
His shot from 12 yards crashed back off the right post and Demus made a brilliant block on the rebound.
Then the Jags had a promising spell. Sam Pugh’s free-kick from 25 yards was held by Wilson.
On 74 minutes Sam Urquhart danced in from the left flank and his netbound shot was diverted behind by Northcott’s head.
From MacAskill’s corner which followed Kyle MacLeod’s glancing header slipped wide.
McCabe sees red
Despite their best efforts, Buckie struggled to exert much pressure in the closing stages and they finished with 10 men as Joe McCabe was shown a straight red card in injury time for scything down the counter-attacking MacLeod.
On the sending off Stewart added: “Joe isn’t the last man, Kevin Fraser was there, I think it’s an error unless it’s a much worse tackle.
“I’ll need to see it back but to me, it looked like a professional foul where he’s taken him out and deserved a booking. We’ll probably appeal it.”
