New manager looks to positives despite defeat to Formartine
Formartine Utd 5 Fort William 2 Highland League
New Fort manager Calum MacLean says his side needs to go shopping for a striker, after watching his new charges go down 5-2 against Formartine Utd on Saturday.
The Breedon Highland League game was due to be a home match played at Claggan Park but pitch conditions saw it switched to Formartine’s ground at North Lodge Park at Pitmedden.
It is still early days for MacLean and his backroom staff, as they only met the playing squad at training on Thursday night.
After Saturday’s bruising encounter with a powerful Formartine outfit, MacLean said he was still impressed by what he saw.
‘We got to have a good look at them and our guys are very good technically. But Formartine are a very good side, big and strong, so it was a tough game. But there is a lot for us to work with and we have a lot of potential in our players,’ he told the Lochaber Times this week.
‘But we really need more players, in particular up front – we need a striker who can score goals. We need to do a bit more attacking.’
As for tomorrow night’s game (Friday) against Clachnacuddin – being played at Highland Rugby Club’s ground due to the Christmas Eve fire at Clachnacudin’s Grant Street Park – MacLean says it will be another tough game.
‘It will be another hard one. I saw them play when Fort beat them 1-0 at Claggan and it was all end-to-end stuff. They’re a good side. Then again, there are no easy ones in this league, but we need to start building up some points from our games.’
MacLean’s hopes must have been raised at least slightly on Saturday, when after just two minutes of play, an amazing finish from Fort’s Roddy Kennedy saw the Lochaber visitors take a 0-1 lead against the hosts Formartine.
Sadly it was a bit short-lived with the home side equalising four minutes later.
On the 21-minute mark, Formartine netted their second to take a 2-1 lead. But the hosts were not having it all their own way, and got a scare eight minutes later when Fort’s Jordan Morrison was through on goal after bouncing on a stray ball from a defender only for the linesman to flag it as offside.
And it was Morrison again who tormented the home defenders with a 25-yard cannonball of a drive that just skiffed the bar by inches.
The fact Fort went into the interval trailing by only one goal was thanks to keeper Mateusz Kulbacki with a great stop just before the halftime whistle.
But five minutes after the restart, the hosts slotted goal number three, with number four following it into the Fort net five minutes later to make it 4-1.
The hosts got their fifth goal on the 78-minute mark and Fort got a consolation second two minutes later when Ross Gunn’s effort found the net.
❚ Clachnacuddin v Fort William FC, at Canal Park, Inverness, tomorrow will kick-off at 7.45pm.
‘We really need more players, in particular up front – we need a striker who can score goals. We need to do a bit more attacking.’