CARROL DELIGHT WITH VICTORY OVER UNFAMILIAR OPPONENTS

Buckie Thistle retained their three-point lead over Cove Rangers at the top of the Highland League table but they had to work hard to break down a well organised Turriff side on the heavy Victoria Park surface on Saturday.

Jags manager Gregg Carrol was relieved to take full points in his first outing against Turriff.

He said: "The name of the game today was to claim all three points and I am delighted that we managed to do that in what was a very hard game against a team we knew very little about as we had never played them before.

"Kris Hunter has got a lot of good young lads in his side, several of whom I know as they played for me at Deveronvale.

"We got the opening goal against the run of play.  I told the players at half-time to go and get another one which they duly did and after that we knew it would be difficult for them to come back, Turriff hit the post with an effort at 2-0 and if that had gone in it would have been a different game."

The home side opened the scoring on 30 minutes when a Martin Charlesworth effort was parried by Ross Buchanan and when the ball broke to Lewis MacKinnon he nodded it over the line.

Buckie then doubled their advantage 10 minutes after the break when Donnie Munro tapped in a Jamie Shewan cross and right on time Craig MacMillan notched his 18th goal of the season when he sprung the visitors' offside trap before curling a beauty past the helpless Buchanan.

Turriff manager Kris Hunter said: "I don't think 3 - 0 was a fair reflection on the balance of play, although Buckie took their chances and we didn't.  That was the difference between the sides.

"I think Buckie can now go on and win the title.  They have a resilience about them, they are getting that bit of luck you need to win the title.

They also have players like Craig MacMillan, who can punish you, and David MacRae, who was different class in the middle of the park today."

Report from Press & Journal