Deveronvale cruise to 4-0 Highland League victory over Lossiemouth but manager Garry Wood picks faults in team’s performance
A comfortable 4-0 victory wasn’t enough to fully satisfy Deveronvale manager Garry Wood as he picked faults in aspects of his team’s display.
Vale saw off a visiting Lossiemouth side, with front three Adam Reid, Ben Hermiston and Jack Mitchell sharing out the goals at Princess Royal Park.
Reid scored two and saw a penalty chance for his hat-trick saved by deputy Coasters keeper Arran Anderson, who came on after regular Stuart Knight was sent off in the first half for two yellow cards.
The home side also hit the bar, but Wood was alarmed that his goalkeeper Ethan Hopkinson had to pull off a string of fine stops following some lapses at the back.
“It was a convincing win,” said Wood. “I'm probably not happy with the performance but I guess that’s a good sign if we’ve not played well and won 4-0.
“Ethan had three or four really good saves throughout the game, which is disappointing that we gave away the chances but on the same token that is what he is there for and it’s another good performance from him.
“It’s pleasing keeping a clean sheet because I think it’s only our third this season and that is something we spoke about before the game so I’m delighted with that.
“But I thought we were slack at times. We did score four, we missed a penalty and hit the woodwork and had numerous other chances so realistically the game could have been 8-4. I’m maybe being too critical as it’s another good result for us but there’s things we could have done better.”
It was Vale’s fourth win in their last five league outings and their sixth of the season, already beating the five victories they managed over the whole of last season.
Wood is striving to maintain the improvements made by the Banff club and is setting targets to ensure they can keep moving forward.
“We are only a few points off of last season’s total and we already have more wins than the whole of last season so the progress is definitely there,” he added. “The challenge now is keeping on going.
“We have looked at the first half of the league season and it’s been really good. We’ve got two games to go (until the halfway point) and we are looking to try and pick up points in those ones as well.
“In the second half of the season we will look to better our first half total.
“I don’t see why we can’t break into the top half of the table. We are five points off of fifth place and when you look at the two points we threw away against Huntly in the last five minutes and the two more points we should have had against Rothes, potentially we could be sitting a lot prettier.
“But we are more than delighted with where we are and we just need to keep the performances up.”
Wood was pleased to see striker Reid double his goal tally for the season with two strikes against Lossiemouth.
He revealed the player arrived at PRP with a reputation of scoring prolifically in junior football, but has been employed in a wider position and is setting up goals as well as scoring them.
“We’ve seen other qualities in him that allows him to play out wide so that's not been that number nine that he probably thought he was going to be.
“It’s not to say he can’t play that role, you see his quality when he gets in the box and his composure for the first finish was tremendous and I’m delighted for him to keep scoring.
“But when you look at his assists as well, he’s had something like six or eight so he is adding that to his game as well, which is pleasing to see.
“You look at our goals for and in terms of the league table its not massively high up but in terms of Saturday, the front three have all scored and they are doing the business for us and I’m delighted for the defence to keep a clean sheet as well.”
This weekend is the second round of the Scottish Cup and with Vale going out to Bo’ness United in the last round, they find themselves frustrated without a fixture when they are in good form.
