Mark Cowie watched Fraserburgh defeat Inverurie Locos in impressive fashion and refused to rule his side out of the Breedon Highland League title race.
The champions triumphed 4-0 at Harlaw Park on Saturday with the result leaving the Broch 11 points behind leaders Brechin City, with the Hedgemen having a game in hand.
Although their destiny is outwith their control Fraserburgh manager Cowie is upbeat about the run-in.
When asked about his hopes for the remainder of the league campaign, Cowie said: “To win the league.
“I know we’re out of it, but if you look at our fixtures we’ve got a few tasty games.
“Certain clubs might be looking for us to do something in some of those games, there’s a lot of twists and turns to go yet.
“On what I’ve seen in the last two games we’re a match for anyone and that’s with having a few ins and outs.
“Being honest we’re looking to be in the top four, we’ve won one trophy and we’re in another final which will be a big occasion.
“We want to finish as high as we can in the league.
“But if we play like we did in the last two games we’ll win a lot of games because we’re a good side that will cause problems.
“I think there’s a long way to go, if anybody says they’re out of it that’s up to them, it’s their opinion.
“We know what we’re capable of, we’ve seen it in the last two games. Not many sides will give Huntly six and win by four at Inverurie.
“We’ve got a lot of big games to go, we’ve got Brechin twice and Brora.
“We’ll definitely have a say – whether we win or not is out of our hands – we need a fair bit of luck but we won’t stop trying.
“We’ll take every game one at a time and try to get as much as we can.
“We won’t throw the towel in, we’ve got a lot of big games to go and we’ll have a say in who wins it or we’ll have a run ourselves.
“All we can concentrate on is Fraserburgh and that’s what we’ll do.
“I’m delighted with this result, it’s been a good week. Ten goals for and zero against and the zero against is probably the most pleasing thing.”
Ruthless Broch
Inverurie Locos debutant Sam Robertson sent a strike wide from 25 yards early on.
But Fraserburgh were soon into their stride. Logan Johnstone made a great block to deny Ryan Sargent but on 25 minutes the Broch made the breakthrough.
Scott Barbour’s corner to the near post wasn’t dealt with and Bryan Hay bundled the ball home from close range.
Five minutes later Robertson’s lob from 20 yards hit the face of the crossbar as Locos looked for an equaliser.
But on 38 minutes they fell further behind with Connor Wood glancing on another Barbour corner for Hay to apply the finishing touch.
It became 3-0 on 57 minutes. Wood drove inside after beating Greg Mitchell on the right and slipped a superb pass into Ryan Sargent who finished from 12 yards.
Inverurie then sent on Jonny Smith for his debut after signing from Formartine United on Saturday morning before Fraserburgh added further gloss to the score.
Greg Buchan’s pass released Scott Barbour on the left side of the box and he fired a low shot into the bottom right corner.
Work to do for Railwaymen
Inverurie boss Andy Low said: “The two goals from set pieces aren’t good enough, it was a sucker-punch as well, I didn’t see them coming.
“We were in the game and playing some good football so there’s a lot to learn from that, it’s frustrating.
“Set pieces are the basics, you do your job and go man to man and be aggressive.
“That was what let us down in that period of the game, I felt the heads were down in the second half.
“We tried to pick them up at half-time but it was almost as if they were still sulking in the second half about the goals we’d conceded.
“Set pieces is an easy one to fix but what worried me in the second half was there was no response to it which is not so easy to fix.
“We are where we are as a club, things might get worse before they get better.
“I don’t want that to happen, I’m ready to pick this club up, I knew where we were when we took the job and there’s a lot of work to do.”
