Title looks to be out of reach now, Brora manager admits after derby draw
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Manager Ally MacDonald admitted the Highland League title now looks to be beyond the reach of Brora Rangers after they had to settle for a share of the points with 10-man Wick Academy.
Wednesday night's goalless draw at Harmsworth Park means the Cattachs remain ninth in the table, having played fewer games than any other team in the league.
"We huffed and puffed and hoped something would happen without ever believing that we were actually going to make it happen," MacDonald said. "I think we lacked quality and the decisions were wrong in certain moments.
"We just weren't creating the chances that we normally do.
"It was frustrating. That's our seventh draw.
"At the start of the season we talked about our ambitions of pushing for the league, and the focus at that time was we needed to get more points against the bigger teams.
"I think it's fair to say that winning the league this year now is probably out of our reach. We can still have a say in who wins it.
"I thought 85 points would win you the league this year. We're just a little bit short of that now, 82 we can get.
"I don't like excuses but we have been hampered by the schedule. Ourselves and Buckie are miles behind [in terms of games played].
"It has interrupted us massively. We've had some big players missing as well."
Brora had most of the pressure but couldn't find a way past a hard-working Wick side who played with 10 men for over half an hour after Gordon MacNab was sent off on 57 minutes for a second bookable offence.
The closest Brora came to scoring was when a back-post header by Jordan MacRae looked to be goal-bound only for Graeme Williamson to dive down and push it wide. That was just after the Wick keeper had produced an instinctive save from a deflected shot by Martin Maclean.
The two clearest chances fell to the home side. In the first half, MacNab broke up the park and played the ball through to Kyle Henderson who was one-on-one with keeper Logan Ross only to pull his angled shot wide of the far post.
In the dying stages, Mark Macadie spearheaded a swift counter-attack down the right and turned a defender before picking out fellow substitute Conor Farquhar who was arriving unmarked on the edge of the box. Farquhar's first-time strike flew over the bar.
Brora welcome Fraserburgh to Dudgeon Park this Saturday, four weeks before the teams go head-to-head in the Highland League Cup final at Inverurie.
"It will be another physical battle," MacDonald said. "We've had good games against Fraserburgh over the years.
"We've got a cup final against them at the end of the month as well so we'll try and figure each other out a little bit.
"It'll be the first time we've played each other this season."
