Elgin City 2 Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic 0: Second league win of season takes Black and Whites off bottom spot
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A vital three points for Elgin City took the Borough Briggs side off bottom spot in League 2.
A determined display in the rain saw Elgin claim victory through second half goals by Rory MacEwan and Connall Ewan.
Goalkeeper Tom McHale and captain Matthew Cooper returned from illness for City while striker Robert Jones was handed a first start following his goal at Stranraer last week.
Jones headed an early home chance over, while the visitors gradually started to take the play to Elgin in dreadful conditions.
It took 25 minutes for the first serious chance to emerge when Rose striker Liam Buchanan was denied by a good McHale stop and Ross Gray’s follow-up was blocked by Mitch Taylor on the stretch.
City had a greater escape on the half hour when a Lee Currie free kick on the right was nodded towards the target by Josh Grigor and the ball struck the left hand post before dropping out to Kerr Young, whose blast was tipped over by McHale.
The best chance for the Black and Whites in the first half saw Ryan MacLeman tamely fire straight at Martin from Rory MacEwan’s ball across the box on 44 minutes.
Yellow cards shown to City trio Ross Draper, Brian Cameron and Jones left the home team running the risk of a dismissal in the second period.
A dream start to the second half saw City grab the lead.
Straight from kick off they advanced into opposition territory and Ross Draper played a pass through to MacEwan, who trapped the ball and fired it past Martin with a defender only able to help the ball into the net on the line.
McHale made a brilliant save from Young’s fierce drive soon after.
But City grabbed a second goal on 61 minutes when Connall Ewan went up for a Liam Harvey free kick and applied the final touch to flick home and make it 2-0.
The game became a battle after that with City throwing bodies at everything the visitors threw at them.
Cooper did well to clear in front of his own goal from a Kieran McGachie ball across goal.
McHale capped a fine display in the home goal by thwarting Taylor Sutherland’s chance in the box, and soon after he slapped away Currie’s netbound 25 yrd free kick.
Ryan MacLeman had a deflected goal disallowed for offside as Elgin kept going in pursuit of a killer third goal.
But they were more than happy to settle for a 2-0 victory to take them off the bottom of League 2.
Elgin: McHale; Cooper, Dolzanski, Ewan, Taylor; Draper; Cameron, MacEwan, MacLeman; Harvey (Cairns 81), Jones (Barron 75).
Subs: Cooney, McKenzie, MacInnes, Cruickshank, King.
Bonnyrigg: Martin; Young, Grigor (Watson 67), Martyniuk; McGale, Mailer (Barrett 79), Gray (Stewart 79), Currie, Peggie; Sutherland, Buchanan (McGachie 67).
Subs: Faye, Doan, Osadolor, Connolly, Andrews.
Ref: Colin Whyte
Att: 600
