Brora boss says they won’t get many chances to close gap after shock defeat
MANAGER Steven Mackay says Brora Rangers will not get too many opportunities to close the gap on leaders Brechin City after suffering a shock 2-1 defeat to Clachnacuddin on Wednesday night.
The Cattachs remain seven points behind Brechin City with only one game in hand after they threw away the lead to go down to the Lilywhites at Dudgeon Park.
Brora Rangers took the lead after seven minutes when Craig Mackenzie connected with a cross from Tom Kelly at the edge of the six-yard box to fire past Logan Ross.
But they were unable to get to grips with the match as Clachnacuddin equalised in the second half when Troy Copper was allowed to charge into the box and fire into the net on the hour mark.
Clachnacuddin went on to win the game with James Anderson finding the net in the 69th minute.
Mackay says his team missed a golden opportunity to close the gap on Brechin City and says they won’t get many chances to do that this season.
“Clachnacuddin was a game in hand that we looked to try and get the win and close the gap to four points.
“It is a huge opportunity that we have let slipped by.
“We won’t get many opportunities the way that Brechin are playing in the league.
“We have put ourselves under a lot of pressure to respond and we need to respond.
“We are big enough and ugly enough to know what we need to do. If we want to be considered title contenders we need to do better than that.”
Speaking about the team’s performance on Wednesday night, he said: “We just never got going and looked lethargic, we didn’t put enough pressure on the ball when they had it.
“It was a lacklustre performance and it is a current theme of the games that we have lost this season.
“We need to find a way of solving it soon as we have had three poor defeats in the league which shouldn’t have had.”
“We looked devoid of ideas and we knew Clachnacuddin would try and sit in after the North of Scotland Cup final. They had a couple of chances and we took them. There is an issue with us mentally in home games against lesser opposition, which is no disrespect to Clachnacuddin. We will get more of that this season, but against Clachnacuddin, even the basics of working hard we didn’t do.
“We freshened it up against Formartine a bit, but we looked devoid of ideas. But it is a sore one, but if you don’t do the basics you don’t win games of football.”
Brora Rangers will look to get their Highland League title bid back on track when they take on Forres Mechanics at Dudgeon Park on Saturday.
