Buckie Thistle rev up for Scottish Cup clash at Albion Rovers on Boxing Day by exacting cup final revenge on Rothes in the Highland League
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A THUMPING 5-1 victory at Rothes was perfect Buckie Thistle preparation for their festive trip to Coatbridge in the cup.
Boss Graeme Stewart believes his team will need to win almost every league match in the 15-game season to challenge favourites Brora Rangers and Fraserburgh.
He asked his men to come up with the goods against fellow challengers Rothes on Saturday and wasn't left disappointed.
Buckie trailed at the break following a scrappy first 45 minutes on a difficult pitch, but came out with all guns blazing in the second half.
Goals by Sam Morrison, Kyle MacLeod, Joe McCabe, Callum Murray and Sam Urquhart emphatically wiped out the Rothes lead earned by Shane Harkness' opener.
"We knew the second half would be different," said Stewart. "There’s a big slope on their pitch and we hadn’t played well in that first half so we had a decent team talk and went out in the second half and we just steamrollered them.
"I told them just to relax and it would come. There was no quality in the first half so I wanted to get the ball in their half quicker and get our best players on the ball.
"I felt our quality would show and it did. Andy MacAskill in particular stepped up to the mark, he was unbelievable."
Buckie's win helped exorcise the demons of last month's League Cup final to the same opponents.
"They always say you learn more from your defeats than your wins and trust me, we learned a lot from that game," Stewart said.
"We did talk about it before the game and they probably did want to prove a point. But we spoke about not getting too emotional about it.
"I said to them that virtually every game is a must-win this season. It’s a fifteen-game league and if we want to win it or be close, we needed to win this game.
"I told them they needed to react to the pressure because good teams do that, and they thrived on it.
"I’ve said it all along that Fraserburgh and Brora are the two strongest teams in the league just now and they are there to be shot at.
"The rest of us, we probably need to be flawless against everybody else. I’ve told my players that and they’ve all taken it on board, and it’s not that easy to win every game but I do firmly believe that we'll need to win just about every game to be right up there."
Next up for Jags is another crucial game, as they make the long journey to Coatbridge on Boxing Day to take on League 2 side Albion Rovers.
Buckie requested a delay in the fixture to the following Monday which Rovers refused, and Stewart warned that the decision could backfire on the SPFL side.
"It’s nothing to do with letting people enjoy themselves too much," he said. "But boys need to be able to relax and get away from football on Christmas day when it’s all about time with their families.
"It will be exactly the same for the Albion players and if we had been the home team I would have changed it, one hundred per cent.
"I don’t see how it benefits anyone playing this game on the day after Christmas.
"But, it’s probably made us more focused, not that we needed much of a gee-up. We might go an extra couple of per cent, up and beyond and hopefully that helps us get a result."
