Pictures: Forres Mechanics win in manager Charlie Rowley's last away game while Huntly boss Allan Hale hits out at his team's Christie Park collapse
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
ALLAN Hale admitted his Huntly team “capitulated” to a 5-2 defeat in Saturday’s Highland League game at home to Forres Mechanics.
The Cans may have been shell-shocked by manager Charlie Rowley's pre-match announcement that he was leaving his position, but they continued their Huntly bogey in some style.
The Moray side clocked up their ninth consecutive league win at Christie Park, scoring four times in a 20-minute blitz after Huntly had taken an early lead through Michael Dangana.
Owen Paterson levelled on 17 minutes, Thomas Brady scored his first goal in Forres colours and further strikes by Paul Brindle and Paterson had Forres 4-1 up at the break.
A second-half revival saw the homesters pull one back through Cameron Heslop and strike the woodwork three times as well as force some good saves out of the Forres keeper.
But a fifth Mechanics goal - a second for Brindle - was followed by a red card for Huntly centre back Michael Clark for kicking out at Brindle in stoppage time.
Forres manager Rowley said: It was far from easy for me to tell the players about my decision, but the main thing is we got a positive result and a really good performance.
"When we came in at half time I said ‘I’ve changed my mind’ because we were 4-1 up but that was more to break the ice.
"The football aspects of the changing room was no factor in my decision. It was arguably that the football side was keeping me there.
"As much as we weren’t getting the results, it’s that sort of dressing room aspect that lures you in and keeps you there, and you are always a bit wary of what you are going to miss out on when you are not there.
"But all things considered it is the right decision for me just now.
"We had that ruthlessness and were much more clinical.
"If we had shown that more often we would be much closer to the top six than we are just now."
Huntly manager Allan Hale was puzzled by his team's collapse.
“We started the game really well, countered them and I thought we were in control of the game, with and without the ball, which was pleasing,” said Hale.
“We scored a really good team goal, we broke away down the left hand side and a great finish from Michael, his first goal for the club.
“But then we had a 15-minute spell when we just capitulated, and from the reaction after the second goal you could see the belief and the work rate had drained out of the players.
“It’s a first-half performance that really isn’t acceptable in terms of the standard we are trying to set and what we are demanding of the players week in, week out.
"That’s a lesson we need to learn as a collective quickly to make sure that type of first-half performance doesn’t happen again.
“If you look at the stats, we had more shots on target in the game. But the damage was done, you can’t give away four goals in a short period and still expect to get something out of the game."
