Buckie Thistle picked up a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Forres Mechanics at Mosset Park to retain their five-point gap at the Highland League summit.
Goals from Josh Peters, Kyle MacLeod and Max Barry gave the Jags three points, with Shaun Morrison and Ben Barron scoring for Forres.
Buckie Thistle manager Graeme Stewart wasn’t entirely impressed with his side’s showing.
He said: “At 2-0 up, you see the first half out and get a goal in the second half and the game is over.
“Good teams do that. We are a good team, but we have let in too many goals this season.
“I’m quite annoyed with the goals we let in. There are positives, but if we play like that then we won’t win our last three games.”
Josh Peters gave Buckie the lead after 10 minutes when he controlled a Kyle MacLeod pass and slotted past Forres’ trialist goalkeeper Aiden MacDonald.
It was 2-0 when MacLeod got on the scoresheet, heading home a Cohen Ramsay cross from the left at the back post.
Forres responded well to going two behind and were back in the game five minutes later when a defensive mix-up allowed Shaun Morrison in to prod past Balint Demus.
Buckie started the second half in commanding fashion and could have restored their two-goal lead when Max Barry’s lobbed effort dropped just wide with MacDonald out of his goal.
The Jags did get that two-goal lead back on 55 minutes, though, when Max Barry turned in MacLeod’s cutback from the right to make it 3-1.
Andy MacAskill had a golden chance to kill the the game before the hour but MacDonald was involved again – this time the impressive trialist rushed out well to deny Buckie’s talisman.
Substitute Ben Barron had Forres’ first shot of the second period – testing Demus with a 20-yard strike, before the same man put the game back in the melting pot.
Dale Wood’s low cross was missed by Lee Fraser and Barron came in to knock a scruffy goal home from close range on 76 minutes.
But Buckie saw the game out, with MacDonald producing an excellent double save to deny Jack Murray after a corner with 10 minutes to play.
Marcus Goodall picked up a poor clearance from the keeper on 82 minutes but saw his drive beaten away, before Max Barry stroked wide from 10 yards after good set-up work from Josh Peters.
Forres manager Steven MacDonald said: “There were a lot of positives to take, but equally you can see why one team is trying to win the league and why we are in that development phase.
“At the moment we are just a bit short of knowing how to win these games.
“You can see Buckie have that experience and quality to do that and that’s why they are going to be close to winning the league.”
Rothes 0-3 Fraserburgh
Fraserburgh eased to a 3-0 victory against Rothes with the help of some poor defending from the Speysiders.
The Broch took the lead on the quarter hour mark when Michael MacCallum, on loan from Strathspey Thistle, allowed an innocuous 35-yard pass back from Alan Pollock to slip under his foot into the unguarded net for the softest of own goals.
It should have been 2-0 five minutes from the break when the ball rebounded off the crossbar to Sean Butcher, but from six yards the Broch striker could only find the side-netting.
The second goal came in the 48th minute when Butcher rose unchallenged to head home a corner kick from eight yards.
With the last kick of the Fraserburgh added a third goal when Scott Barbour capitalised on more slack defending by the home side to round MacCallum and slot the ball home from six yards.
Broch boss Mark Cowie said: “I don’t think Michael MacCallum did much wrong after that early error which gave us the lead, but it’s never nice to see a goalkeeper make a mistake like that.
“That maybe gave us the wee spark we needed as I thought we were a little sluggish up until that point.
“We kept a clean sheet against Brechin on Wednesday night and I don’t think Rothes troubled us all that much going forward.
“I’m really glad that Scott Barbour, who works unbelievably hard, got his reward with that last minute goal.”
Rothes boss Ross Jack was bitterly disappointed by his side’s performance.
He said: “Fraserburgh didn’t have to work hard to beat us with three of the softest goals they’ll ever score.
“I thought that April Fool’s Day finished at noon, but today just wasn’t acceptable.
“It was a total joke from start to finish.”
Conversation