Halkirk United look to claw back gap with top three when they face Invergordon
HALKIRK United manager Ewan McElroy says his team will be looking to bounce back from losing their first match in the North Caledonian League this season when they head to Invergordon tomorrow.
The Anglers went down to a 4-3 defeat to Inverness Athletic at Morrison Park as they fell three points behind the top three last week.
Russell MacIntyre gave Athletic the lead after two minutes, but a Ewan Neil own goal drew the teams level 60 seconds later. Bradi Hulme gave Athletic a 2-1 lead at half time, before MacIntyre grabbed his second to make it 3-1 in the second half.
Jonah Martens pulled one back for Halkirk, but Ross Cooper restored Athletic’s two-goal advantage in injury time.
McElroy admitted it was a disappointing defeat but will look to claw back the deficit with the leading teams when they head to Invergordon.
He said:“There was no hiding the fact we were really disappointed with the result on Saturday. To create as many chances as we did it was a bit of a blow to come away with nothing.
“Long and short of it is if you concede four goals in any game and are not then clinical at the other end you are going to come away with very little. A couple of the goals conceded are fluke mistakes but we could do better in a number of areas and the best thing to do is learn and move on.
“In the boys defence its been a hectic couple weeks, they have played more games than any other team with basically five games in a fortnight. The boys have not had a pre-season and I really cant fault the effort and application.
“Although we have a less taxing schedule coming up things certainly don’t ease up in terms of difficulty.
“We have a really challenging group of fixtures ahead and will need to be at our absolute best if we want to get anything from each game. It starts with the league favourites on their own patch this weekend.
“Invergordon are unbeaten in the league, have added well over summer and it again looks like they will be the team to beat.
“Although we travel down as underdogs, it’s a game the squad are looking forward to and testing yourself against the best in the league is something everyone should relish.”
Thurso who lost 2-0 to Orkney last weekend, will look for their second win of the campaign when they face St Duthus in Tain.
