THUNDERSTRUCK

Pirates finish the year with a flourish by destroying Kilmarnock

BEN RAMAGE

Paisley Pirates hammered hapless Kilmarnock Thunder to bring down the curtain on 2019 in style.

After a difficult end to the year, the Pirates went into the clash with the Ayrshire side on the back of two excellent wins over Kirkcaldy Kestrels which sealed them a place in the Scottish Cup semifinals.

And the Paisley team coasted to another comfortable win against their near neighbours, but only after they managed to overcome a sluggish start.

The Braehead hosts were ahead after just three minutes as Richard Thorp fired past Malcolm Anderson in the visitors’ goal.

But they had to wait until the 17th minute to get their second through Conor Duncan after a period of misplaced passes and inspired goal tending by the Thunder stopper Anderson.

In the middle session, Pirates finally began to show some rhythm and scored five times in nine minutes.

Connor Spiers, in particular, was finding plenty of room down the left flank and assisted no fewer than three of the goals.

Duncan completed his hat-trick while Thorp and Zak Kenneth also got in on the act to take the score to 7-0 by the second break.

David Paul took over from Anderson between the pipes for the visitors at the start of the third session.

With Callum Donaghy a virtual spectator in the other goal, the traffic continued to flow towards the Killie end.

Spiers scored the eighth with a thunderbolt from the blue line after 45 minutes, with further goals from Ross Andreucci and Duncan with his fourth of the night tipping the Pirates into double digits.

Finally skipper Chris Turley got his name on the scoresheet, taking the final tally to 11 on the night.

A shots on goal total of 73-8 told the story of the game.

Afterwards, player-coach Adam Walker said: “We started a bit slowly but I thought that the performance overall was better and we could maybe have even scored a few more.”

The Pirates’ next home game is on Saturday, January 4, when they are firstfooted by Dundee Comets.

Face-off is at 6.30pm.