Thurso in nine-goal rout
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CLACHNACUDDIN ‘A’ 1 - 9 THURSO
CLACH’S youngsters endured a torrid baptism on Saturday as the Inverness side made its return to North Caley ranks.
The squad was packed with teenagers who have promise but who were unable to cope with a Vikings side firing on all cylinders.
The red-carding of home keeper Douglas MacDonald for deliberate hand-ball outside his box midway through the first half did not help, but by then Clach already trailed 3-0.
Having leaked another goal before the break, the home side rallied well and thoroughly merited Scott Chisholm’s scrambled finish. Their purple patch was punctured when an incisive pass from new signing Iain Innes set Mark Nichol up to make it 5-1.
That ended Clach’s resistance and they could easily have been at the wrong end of an even heavier reverse had their opponents not had to play out the last 15 minutes with 10 men.
That resulted from midfielder Gary MacGregor hirpling off when his side had already committed their three subs.
Thurso were quickly in the ascendancy in the match at Bught Park with newcomer Grant MacNab and Nichol (twice) netting in the opening quarter-of-an-hour.
Nichol completed his hat-trick before the break. Nichol grabbed two more to finish with a five-goal haul, with Liam Bremner adding two after coming off the bench and fellow sub Chris Wann completing the rout.
Thurso manager Stevie Reid was delighted with the contrast to the previous week’s turgid goalless draw versus Alness United.
He said: "I can have no complaints about how we performed. We didn’t really know what to expect but we were excellent, especially in the opening half an hour when we played some really good football.
"Our passing and movement were good and they struggled to cope with the three we had up front."
The manager believed the Clach keeper was unlucky to be red-carded but said his side had already established a winning position before the incident. He added: "To be fair to them, they came out and were on top at the start of the second half and they deserved their goal. But we stepped it up again and scored a few more goals. We looked a lot sharper than the previous week."
Clachnacuddin: D. MacDonald, Queen, Tawse, McCorquodale, Mackenzie, Lee, Chisholm, S. MacDonald, Corbett, Nairn, McCurran. Subs, all used: Hardy, Stewart and Sutherland.
Thurso: Sinclair, Harrold, MacDougall, Smith, Innes, Ross, Petrie (Wann 56), MacGregor, Nichol, MacNab (Stewart 60), Elder (Bremner 51).
Referee: J. Bicknell.
n The only other victors on Saturday were Alness United with second-half goals from John MacLeod and Shaun Robertson earning them an impressive 2-0 home win over Golspie Sutherland.
Dingwall Thistle and Muir of Ord played out a goalless draw.
Teams have a day off tomorrow with no games scheduled because of the Scotland v Czech Republic European Championship qualifier at Hampden Park.
