Strathspey Thistle 1 Lossiemouth 3: Coasters secure win over bottom side with two late goals
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A LATE show saw Lossiemouth defeat Strathspey Thistle to secure their first Highland League victory since early October.
After Liam Archibald’s second half opener, Strathspey levelled the scores and the Coasters were heading towards a 1-1 draw with the league’s bottom side.
However, substitute Fraser Forbes came off the bench to score the decisive goal, before Ross Archibald wrapped up the points in added time.
Manager Ian Campbell said: “Overall, we deserved the win. We have played better and lost games, but we have lost a lot of games in the last minute ourselves to maybe it was our turn to get that bit of luck.
“The subs gave us a bit more energy and we thought a point wasn’t really much good, so we took a chance and went for it. Thankfully it paid off.”
Lossie had a chance to take the lead in the first period, but Dean Stewart saw his penalty saved.
“That rocked us,” Campbell admitted.
“But we were on top for the majority of the game and were by far the better team in the second half.
“We had one ruled out for the ball being out and it was poor defending for their equaliser, but it was cleared from around the line. The linesman said it was over and then we had a stuffy 10 minutes.
“But we took the game to them and got the two late goals.”
Tomorrow’s task will be entirely different for Lossie, taking on title-favourites Brechin City at home after dispatching the league’s bottom side on the road.
“Strathy played decent stuff with bodies behind the ball and gave us a lot of possession,” Campbell added.
“We will totally change our approach and the way we play the game for Brechin.
“Our boys prefer to be underdogs. They beat us 2-0 in the cup recently and we lost 3-0 down there in the league.
“Hopefully we can keep them out early, steal a goal and maybe we can put a cat among the pigeons.”
Lossiemouth are set to continue under the guidance of Ian Campbell, Scott Campbell and Tony Ross for the foreseeable future.
Ross described the current step up as “a team effort” and believes them taking the reigns, potentially until the end of the season, will give the club time to appoint the right manager.
Ryan Farquhar has returned to training ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Brechin, while Niall and Jared Kennedy are set to be available having missed Saturday’s game in Grantown.
