Jags net place in cup fourth round
South Lochaber Thistle booked their place in the fourth round of the Scottish Amateur FA Cup with a powerful demolition of Aberdeenshire side Insch AFC, writes Peter Newman.
It was the home side which opened the strongest. Insch moved the ball comfortably and retained position with some slick movement.
However, veteran founding father David Forbes was determined to keep his house in order this week and marauded forward after snapping into an early challenge. Looking up, the home grown Methuselah took aim from outside the box and fired the Jags into a 1-0 lead. This encouraged SLT to further endeavours. With a quarter of an hour gone, the visitors won a corner. Forbes turned provider and slipped the ball to youthful centre half Stevie Neil who dipped his shoulder to wrong foot his opposite number before slamming the ball into the bottom corner for 2-0. His knee slide celebration of his first goal for the club was almost as much a thing of beauty as his goal.
Ten minutes later, Forbes’ midfield partner and protégé Andrew Mclean was the next to turn provider. Driving forward, he nosed past the defender and slipped a ball to Keir Kennedy who made no mistake with the finish.
That made it 3-0 at the interval but Thistle had to reshuffle the pack when reserve full back Sean Noble was forced from the field with a sore toe, Lewis Murphy coming into midfield.
The second half began on a knife edge and things looked like they were about to take a turn for the worse for the Jags. Driving into the box and getting his shot away, an Insch striker cannoned the ball off Neil’s hand for an unavoidable penalty.
Stepping up and dispatching the ball towards Ryan Boomer’s bottom corner, the youngster went full stretch to his left and clawed the ball away which allowed SLT to scramble the ball away to safety.
Murphy had been making an impact since coming on. First, he had a goal chalked off for offside, before Thistle capitalised on the penalty save and broke up the other end of the field. Murphy pressed the defence and gobbled up an under hit back pass to round the Insch’s keeper to make the score 4-0.
Things went from good to better as Murphy fed the ball to last week’s hat trick hero Logan Barker who unleashed a chip worthy of his mentor for 5-0.
SLT were managing the game as well as they have ever done and looking to see out the victory in as professional manner as possible. Boomer was called on to save another penalty after Kieron Lopez was adjudged to have pulled the striker down in the box. High on confidence after his last save, the keeper was more than a match and secured his clean sheet.
With the clock ticking down, skipper Martin Munro stepped up behind a free kick 25 yards from goal. With the minimum of fuss, the pint-sized winger steered the ball around the wall to conclude the scoring for an emphatic 6-0 victory.
Manager Alan Gray said: ‘This was such an exciting victory. Insch are a good team but we just blew them away. We won the crucial moments and we owe a huge amount to Ryan Boomer in goal with two outstanding saves from the penalties. Logan Barker was outstanding going forward and holding the ball and Marty terrorised their full back.
‘But it is almost impossible to pick out individuals from such a comprehensive team performance.
‘It was also great to see young Kyle Dignan making his debut for the club. It’s incredibly exciting to see how far this team can push themselves in this competition. To be in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup is overwhelming.’