Buckie Thistle manager Graeme Stewart was pleased to see his side maintain their two-point lead at the top of the Breedon Highland League with a hard-fought 2-0 win against Inverurie Locos at Victoria Park.
Second half goals from Josh Peters and Andrew MacAskill gave Buckie Thistle all three points.
Stewart was pleased with the win and full of praise for his former coach Andy Low, who returned to the Locos dugout for his second spell in charge.
He said: “I’m delighted with the win. Any win was going to be good today – when a team gets a new manager they want to impress and they were hard to break down in the first half.
“We didn’t panic at half time, we just changed one or two little things and our quality showed in the second half.
“Some of the football we played in the second half was outstanding, we maybe need to start games better, but we still had plenty possession and just needed to do things quicker.”
Early yellow card led to enforced change
Stewart said it was only the second time he’s taken a player off in the first half at Buckie, after he replaced Joe McCabe, who was on a yellow card, with Hamish Munro in the 26th minute.
The Jags boss said: “It was disappointing for Joe, but it wasn’t anything to do with his performance, it was more to do with the early booking.
“It affected us a bit as we missed his threat down the right side.
“Andy Low worked under me at Buckie and he is an outstanding coach. He was a big miss when he left, but, while that was disappointing, I understood why he did.
“He’s a good friend of mine and I’ve no doubt he’ll do a great job at Locos. I wish him all the best.”
A hard-fought first half saw the best chance come for the visitors on 28 minutes.
Logan Johnstone broke out of defence and delivered a great cross for the unmarked Nathan Meres, but he couldn’t get the ball under control and Balint Demus made the save.
Ryan Fyffe also had a good opportunity for the Jags, but he could only fire wide from eight yards after the ball broke to him from a corner.
Deadlock broken early in second half
The home side took the lead eight minutes after the break with a well worked goal.
Kyle Macleod did well in the air to find Marcus Goodall, who held off his man and squared for Peters to side-foot home via the crossbar from 10 yards.
MacAskill made it two just beyond the hour mark.
Max Barry robbed substitute Craig Gill in midfield and played in Peters, who reversed a beautiful pass into the path of MacAskill, and he fired low into the bottom corner from 12 yards.
Positives in defeat for returning Locos boss Low
Locos boss Low was happy with the efforts of his players on his return as manager.
He said: “The players stuck to the game plan we put in place. We aimed to frustrate Buckie, keep our shape and look to be a threat on the break.
“I thought we had the better chances in the first half and it was a bit disappointing not to be one or two goals up at half time.
“In the second half, we dropped too deep and Buckie started playing through the space in front.
“A lot of positives to take from the game though – I only had an hour with the squad on Thursday and they adapted well to the ideas we had today.”
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