Elgin City boss Gavin Price admitted it seemed like Elgin City had prepared poorly for Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie against Civil Service Strollers – until the players took a half-time rocket.
Price told how he noised-up the home dressing room at half-time rocket before an improved showing in the second half.
Kane Hester’s first half goal was cruel luck on the Lowland League visitors, who had dominated for spells much to Price’s concern.
“We could easily have been behind in the first half,” he said.
“I thought all over the park we were slack, and it took a bit of magic from Conor (O’Keefe) and a finish from Kane to get that first goal out of nothing.
“We were quite fortunate but they were given a hard time about it at half-time.
“They’ve all got to demand better of each other and to be fair, they responded in the second half really well.
“We looked as though we missed a training session this week, which concerns me for next week.
“We’ve got away with that today and we need to make sure we’re ready for the Brechin game on Saturday.”
HIGHLIGHTS | @ElginCityFC 4-0 @csstrollers#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/OJK9mY9VWa
— Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) December 27, 2020
Price was grateful to star striker Hester for his scoring contribution and paid tribute to the pacy forward’s hat-trick display.
But he said Elgin are not a one-man team as they showed with their second half performance.
“Kane could have had more than three, as he had a couple more chances.
“He’s real live wire and he gives us that something extra.
“Sometimes you can get frustrated with the things he’s trying but at the same time you’ve just got to let him go.
“He’s in a rich vein of form. In my eyes he’s getting better all the time. I’m just hoping that he can continue that and we can keep hold of him.
“He’s got that pace and he’s a real threat to teams, but I’d like to think we’ve got more strings to our bow.
“We played that second half with a lot of width and Conor O’Keefe is a real threat in those wide areas, and Russell Dingwall popped up with another goal and continues to get into good areas.”