Thistle win the cup!
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Forres Thistle 3 Buckie Rovers 1
Forres Thistle finished the season on a high with a tremendous 3-1 victory over Buckie Rovers at Borough Briggs, lifting the Elginshire Refrigeration Cup thanks to goals from Matty Fraser (2) and Mark Pennie.
"It is a great feeling and hopefully it will be the first of many finals," said Thistle manager, Ian McLeod.
"We deserved to get something out of the season and this was a reward for everyone who has been involved over its course."
The Rovers had the best of the early possession during the first half but Thistle grew in confidence after clearing an early Buckie effort.
Chances fell to Matty Davidson, Matty Fraser and Craig Daley as the Jags took total control. Buckie stopper, Sherman, tipped a Daley header on to the crossbar on the 36th minute as Rovers strained under the pressure.
The Forres man pounced on the resulting short goal kick, winning the tackle and squaring it for Matty Fraser who slotted it low into the net from 12 yards.
Three minutes later Matty Davidson flicked the ball into the inside right channel where Matty Fraser was racing in to fire home his second.
It remained 2-0 up to half time, with the whistle being greeted by a large cheer from an increasingly merry Forres contingent in the Borough Briggs stand.
The second half began with some crunching early tackles from Buckie that lead to the yellow card being shown twice. They had a couple of snips at goal but on the whole Forres continued to dominate possession and looked like the better footballing side.
However, the game was back in the melting pot when, with fifteen minutes to go, a driven Chris Gardiner corner for Rovers was bulleted into the back of the net by veteran Stephen Bruce. It was now a one goal game but the Jags never panicked.
The goal, the Jags thoroughly deserved, came in the 82nd minute and it arrived courtesy of the veteran Mark Pennie. Matty Davidson’s corner found Pennie at the back post and he volleyed it into the corner of the net.
After the match a delighted Ian McLeod paid tribute to his players who revelled on the big stage.
"Every player was superb," he said. "For only having played one game in five weeks I thought we knocked the ball about really well."
He added: "We had talked about keeping the ball, that is what we are good at, and knocking it to feet and this was the perfect pitch for us to do that.
"When they scored to come back to make it 2-1 it was important that we didn’t panic and to be fair we settled down straight away and deserved to go on and score a third.
"Every one of them deserved to win the game."
