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Cumbernauld Colts boss David Proctor says striker Ewen Macpherson produced one of the“best individual displays he’s seen”after a first-half hat-trick in their thumping 5-2 win over Dalbeattie Star.
After a trio of defeats to begin the Lowland League season, Colts kickstarted their campaign with back-toback wins during the past week.
They defeated East Stirlingshire 3-2 on the road last midweek and backed that up with the thrashing of Star at Islecroft on Saturday.
Colts were 5-1 up at half-time before the hosts netted the only goal of the second half. Colts also had Dylan Tennant sent off late on.
But Proctor was blown away by his side’s display over the piece and had special praise for his striker.
He beamed:“we came out of the traps really quickly against Dalbeattie and that was our best performance of the season so far, without a doubt.
“To go 5-1 up at half-time was fantastic.
“We set the bar so high in that first half, Dalbeattie were always going to have a spell where they came back into it so it was disappointing to lose the goal in the second half.
“Ewen produced one of the best individual performances over 45 minutes that I’ve seen.
“He was playing in a wider area, but he was beating his man, cutting inside and he had an assist as well as his hat-trick.
“So it was really pleasing.”
Colts are up to 12th in the table but Proctor hopes his side can start improving at the back after conceding 15 goals in five games.
He added:“we spoke about that after the game, and keeping our standards high because we have lost too many goals so far.
“The first three games were against teams that are quite likely to be placed highly [Rangers B, Tranent and Bo’ness] come the end of the season, so it was always going to be quite tough.
“If we can be a wee bit tighter at the back and keep some clean sheets, we’ll be doing okay because we are certainly scoring enough goals.”
Colts are sidelined this weekend, being the idle side in the 19-team division, and will start preparing for a South Challenge Cup clash with Cowdenbeath on August 20.
”You always want to keep the momentum going and build on a win,” the 38-year-old said.
”Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to do that, but it allows us to work on things defensively more than anything.”