Brora Rangers heavenly 11 are ready for Brechin City
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CRAIG Campbell is urging Brora Rangers to use Saturday’s cup final joy and Wednesday’s 11-goal rout to inspire them to a crucial win over Brechin City tomorrow.
The Sutherland side destroyed Strathspey Thistle 11-0 in midweek to maintain momentum in the league title race, fresh from lifting the North of Scotland Cup last weekend.
The 2-1 win over Clach at Grant Street Park, with goals from Jordan MacRae and Andy Macrae, was hardly vintage Brora, but the trip to Grantown brought a goal spree from nine different scorers.
MacRae and Gregor MacDonald hit doubles, with the win drawing the Cattachs to within three points of Saturday’s opponents after nine games.
Brechin stumbled to a 2-2 draw at home to Huntly on Wednesday the first chink in their armour this season.
Campbell, though, won’t underestimate the visitors.
“Brechin, Wednesday aside, have definitely been setting the benchmark this season,” Campbell acknowledged. “They don’t seem to be scoring a lot of goals, but they have a winning habit and they don’t concede many. From their perspective, that’s all positive.
“They’ve had one setback and will be eager to put it right this weekend.
“We just have to concentrate on ourselves and look to win the game.
“If our boys are firing on all cylinders, we can beat anybody on our day.”
Campbell added the North Cup to the Highland League Cup he collected last season, but knows trophy success is a non-negotiable part of his job.
“I was under no illusions when I was offered the job that the expectation is you have to be successful in terms of bringing trophies back,” he said.
“We know where we are – we have a good squad. We didn’t do well enough in the league last year and we want to improve on that, but we won the Highland League Cup last year and now we’ve won the North of Scotland Cup after losing last year’s final. It seems like we are making progress.
“The cup final victory gave us a lift going into these important games. We can take extra confidence from that going into what is another cup final, really, against Brechin City.
“These are the times we need everybody in the squad and I expressed that on Saturday. There are obviously boys who were disappointed not playing in the cup final, but we need everyone involved.”
Brora struck first against Strathspey after 10 minutes when Gregor Macdonald’s strike found the bottom corner. Macdonald doubled the advantage from a Jordan MacRae pass, before MacRae provided another assist for Andy Macrae to get on the scoresheet.
MacRae himself netted twice before the break to make it 5-0 to Craig Campbell’s in-form side at half time.
Dale Gillespie back-heeling in the sixth before Ali Sutherland, Tom Kelly, Mark Nicolson, Tony Dingwall and Max Ewan wrapped up an incredible night’s work.
