FLYING HIGH
Winter confident after firing Kilby into play-off final for League Two
Sean Winter helped fire East Kilbride into the League Two playoff final – and now he reckons the Lowland champs have what it takes to send Cowdenbeath crashing out of senior football.
Sensational strikes from Winter and Joao Victoria helped Kilby to a 2-1 semi-final win over nine-man Buckie Thistle, who pulled one back through a David Proctor own goal but then had Drew Copeland and Chris Angus sent off to kill their hopes.
After a 2-2 draw in the first leg, Kilby progressed 4-3 on aggregate in front of a sellout crowd to set up a two-legged final with the Blue Brazil over the next two weekends.
Martin Lauchlan’s men have already stunned Cowden this season, winning 1-0 with 10-men in the Scottish Cup second round back in October.
And ahead of the first leg at K-Park on Saturday, Winter reckons Kilby can complete their promotion mission and consign Gary Locke’s side to a third consecutive relegation.
Winter, who has bagged 22 goals this season, said: “If you look at our squad everyone has played at Championship or League One level before, so we’ve got enough experience there.
“There’s boys who have won leagues and play-offs before so we know what it takes to do that.
“I’m confident we can go and finish the job.
“Cowdenbeath have finished bottom out of every professional side in Scotland so
they are going to be hurting and they are not going to have much confidence, especially as we have beaten them before.
“It’s an entirely different game this time. They’ve got a new manager in and new players, but we’ll just need to go and play our own game and hopefully we’ve got enough
“We know they will be decent, but it’s down to us. If we perform the way we know we can I think we’ve got a good chance.
“This is the last wee hurdle and I’m confident we can get over it.”
On sending Buckie out, the 29-year-old added: “They weren’t really in the game and I don’t think they had a shot on target the whole match.
“The only way they were going to get something was through our mistakes, so we deserve to go through.”
Kilby got off to a dream start inside six minutes when Winter rifled a strike into the top corner from an acute angle.
Victoria doubled EK’s advantage in 22 minutes when he hammered home a strike
off the underside of the crossbar from 18 yards.
The visitors pulled one back on 33 minutes in bizarre circumstances when Proctor’s miscued clearance looped over Kilby keeper Matt McGinley and into the net from 30 yards.
However, on the stroke of half time the Jags were reduced to 10 men when Copeland was shown a second yellow card for hauling down Winter on the edge of the box.
And 10 minutes from time Buckie’s misery was complete when Angus was shown a second yellow for diving in the box.
Jags gaffer Graeme Stewart said: “Having two players sent off, the spirit we showed was great. I thought we were the better team in the second half.
“If Chris has dived he deserves to go, but I’ll need to see it back. I thought it was a bit harsh.
“It was two sloppy goals and we need to make teams work harder for their goals.
“EK are geared up to go further forward
and we are not, but I think we showed we are on a level playing field with them.”
Now two legs with Cowden stand between EK and history as they aim to become the town’s first senior team.