Resilience continues Scorries' winning start
WICK Academy survived a first half onslaught as Buckie Thistle were left to rue a number of missed chances as they went down 2-1 in Caithness.
Davie Kirkwood praised his side from coming back from behind against a physical Moray outfit, saying that his side have learned how to close games out, being less naïve than last season.
"It took us a while to get into the game and we struggled to get to grips with Buckie in the first 25 minutes," he said.
"But once we did, we managed to get into our stride and we deserved to go into the interval level.
"In the second half, we kept our game plan of playing the ball wide and on the ground and Buckie didn't have an answer for it."
The hosts could have taken the lead in the first 60 seconds when a Gary Manson cross from the left wing was nodded back by Lukasz Geruzel to leave James Pickles with an open goal from six yards, but the Orcadian failed to keep his nerve as he blasted over.
Thistle dominated the first half and won a penalty on 24 minutes when Grant Steven was booked for deliberately pulling down Shawn Scott from getting to a Paul Napier cross.
Zander Sutherland kept his cool to send Michael Gray the wrong way by placing it in the bottom left corner.
Six minutes later against the run of play, Wick equalised when Gary Manson crossed in from the left wing to find Pickles in the box, who set up Geruzel to rocket into the top right hand corner.
Buckie continued to press throughout the game and messed up a golden opportunity to take the lead at the start of the second half when a fluffed Grant Steven clearance left Sutherland with only the goalkeeper to beat, but blasted his shot wide of the right hand post.
Academy grew in confidence as the game progressed and took the lead on 74 minutes when Geruzel held off the defence to lay up Davie Allan, whose shot rocketed into the bottom right corner from 20 yards leaving goalkeeper Kevin Main no chance.
Buckie pressed for an equaliser and had a great chance in injury time when a long ball from Lewis MacKinnon beat the Academy defence to leave Sutherland with only the goalkeeper to beat, but a last ditch tackle from Rosss Allan kept all three points in the Far North.
Thistle manager Gary Hake blasted his team for not converting its chances in the first half, leaving his side pointless after two games and demanded an improvement in the coming weeks.
"In the first half we played Wick Academy off the park and should have been at least three goals up by half time," he said.
"But they gave us a sucker punch on the half hour and we let them back into the game, which was our story last season and the way we have started this one.
"They are positives to take out the game as I thought we were the better team and we deserved to take more than a point."