Deveronvale took advantage of Turriff United’s inability to score one of three good early chances they created to record a 2-0 victory over their bogey team of the past few seasons.
Goals from Dane Ballard and Zane Laird did the damage for the home side as they gained a much-needed victory after a run of poor recent results in the Highland League.
Vale manager Craig Stewart was delighted to see his team rewarded for their dominance, saying everyone played their part in the victory – but he heaped praise on young full-back Jayden Goldie.
He said: “Jayden has stepped up from the under-18s this season and has produced consistent performances, while getting better, and quite rightly he has claimed the man of the match award for the last two home games with his work rate.
“His attitude has been fantastic playing the position extremely well.
“Over the 90 minutes, we deserved the victory with two pieces of quality in the first half setting up the win, with well-worked goals.
“We did struggle with their long ball early on, but we got to grips with it to stop the service to their forwards.
“The win has been coming and we now need to kick on and finish the season strongly and see where it takes us”.
Vale make Turriff pay for early missed chances
Keir Smith, Kyle Gordon and Reece McKeown all had decent chances to open the scoring before Vale broke the deadlock after 29 minutes, when Horace Ormsby – who tormented the visitors throughout – swept a fine ball wide to Michael Watson, and his ball across the face of goal was turned into the net by Ballard.
Ormsby was also the architect of Vale’s second strike three minutes from the break when he raced past Owen Kinsella on the left to set up Laird for a tap in to record his first Vale goal.
No complaints from United boss
Turriff manager Dean Donaldson said his team got exactly what they deserved from the game.
He said “We had good chances to go ahead as goals change games, but I am not going to say we deserved to get the victory, because we didn’t.
“We failed to take them and we got punished at the other end, so the boys need to take responsibility, which they didn’t, as some of them didn’t have enough about them on the day and that is disappointing.
“Both Vale goals came from slack play from ourselves, but they deserved to get the win and my players need to take a look at themselves as we have nobody to blame apart from ourselves for the performance.”
After the defeat, Turriff were boosted by the news Andy Watt, currently out injured, has penned a new deal keeping him with the Haughs club until 2026.
Locos give Low first win
Andy Low celebrated his first win since returning to Inverurie Locos as two early goals set his side on their way to a 4-0 win against Strathspey Thistle at Harlaw Park.
The opening goal came in the 10th minute as Jonny Smith capitalised on Strathspey hesistancy before setting up Sam Robertson to score.
Robertson’s brother Lloyd was then bundled over in the box, with Smith converting the resulting penalty to double Locos’ lead.
The goal of the game came just after the half-hour as winger Nathan Meres fired in a spectacular strike from wide on the right to make it 3-0 at the break.
Smith grabbed his second of the game – and his side’s fourth – when he converted a Sam Robertson cutback just after the hour mark.
Locos boss pleased by display
A delighted Low said: “I was really pleased especially with our first half display but the biggest thing is the players are really taking the messages on board.
“We worked during the week on setting the tempo and showing we wanted to be aggressive in getting to the second balls.
“I’ve only been back in the job for a fortnight and already our recruitment is paying off.
“Jonathan Smith and Sam Robertson have slotted in and these guys really stepped.
“My assistant Jamie Watt also suggested we wanted a stronger voice and more legs in the midfield, so we tried that idea out and it worked with captain Greg Mitchell in the middle.”
Jags caretaker boss bemoans gulf between the teams
Brian Ritchie, interim boss of bottom side Strathspey, had no complaints about the defeat.
He said: “The game plan went out the window so early into the game – we had aimed to frustrate as long as we could, but we weren’t at the races.
“It was a huge gulf between the sides and, realistically, we really have to look at building confidence and structure with a (relegation) play-off to maintain our status. That’s the reality of the situation.”
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