Forres Mechanics 2 Pollok 5: Midfielder Samba Badjana signs for Can-Cans after impressive trial showing
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A SUCCESSFUL showing from trialist Samba Badjana was just one of a number of positives for Forres Mechanics manager Steven MacDonald to take from Friday’s 5-2 defeat against Glasgow side Pollok.
The 21-year-old defensive midfielder, whose last club was Chelmsford City in England’s National League South, was asked to put pen to paper after the full-time whistle on Friday due to the impressive nature of his performance.
MacDonald is also working on securing the signature of the scorer of Forres’ second goal, who was another one of four on trial. The centre-half, who played 90 minutes, won’t be joining the club.
On the field, the performance provided encouragement for the Cans boss.
Forres went 2-0 behind within 15 minutes, but fought back with goals from Jack Grant and aforementioned trialist levelling the scores before the hour.
Pollok raced into a 4-2 lead just after the hour mark, before left-back Mark Maclauchlan’s strange own goal made it 5-2 with 15 minutes to play.
“Pollok are a very good side but I think the score flattered them in the end,” MacDonald said. “It didn’t look like it was going to be 5-2 for most of the second half but we gave them goals in the end and we have to work on that.
“We obviously started the game very badly and they get a goal in the first minute and followed it up with a second and you think ‘this could be a hiding’ because they looked good.
“But we grew into the game and, once we got our goal with a great strike from Jack, we did as well as them for the rest of the half and looked good.
"At the start of the second half we looked good too. I thought we were on top of them and I don’t think we deserved to lose the goal – but we made mistakes for 3-2 and 4-2.
"Mark’s own goal was harder to score than it was to clear it but he did really well overall.
“There were a lot of positives. Last week versus Islavale (a 1-0 Forres win) there weren’t. Pollok wouldn’t be far off winning the Highland League. They’d be right up the top, they are that sort of standard. We learned a lot from the game.”
Forres host Fraserburgh United at Mosset Park on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
