Buckie Thistle manager Graeme Stewart was pleased to keep the pressure on at the top of the Breedon Highland League with a 2-0 victory against Forres Mechanics.
But the Jags boss was disappointed with his side’s performance at Mosset Park despite taking all three points.
First half goals from Kyle MacLeod and Lewis MacKinnon made it 22 league wins in a row for Buckie and with three fixtures left they remain a point behind leaders Fraserburgh.
Stewart said: “I’m delighted with the result, but not the performance. Although, a lot of that was down to Forres who were excellent.
“It’s all about results just now so I can’t be too harsh, but if I’m being overly critical then we’ll have to play better than that in our remaining games.
“You’d take scrappy 1-0 wins in the games we have left, of course you would. But we’re trying to build something here, it’s about performances and standards.
“I thought too many of them were below their standards and you can have an off day.
“We’ve got to keep winning our games, we don’t want to hand it to Fraserburgh, we want to make them work for it.
“If we win our last three games then we’ll make them work for it, if they keep going the way they’re going they’ll work for it, they’ll win it and they’ll be deserving champions.”
Jags hit the front early
Forres started brightly with Ben Barron volleying Callum Johnston’s cross from the right against the right post in the second minute.
But in the fifth minute the Jags took the lead. Andrew MacAskill’s left-footed effort from 25 yards was only parried by Can-Cans goalkeeper Stuart Knight and MacLeod was on hand to tap home the rebound.
MacAskill, Jack Murray and MacLeod went close to increasing the advantage in the first period, but Buckie’s second eventually arrived on the stroke of half-time.
MacAskill’s free-kick from the right was flicked on before being stabbed home by MacKinnon at the back post, with the goal awarded despite Forres protesting that the scorer was offside.
The home side kept battling in a bid to get back in the game with Lee Fraser heading over when unmarked from a Kane Davies cross on 62 minutes.
With quarter of an hour left Fraser’s powerful strike from the left side of the area was tipped onto the right post by goalkeeper Kevin Main.
Then in the 80th minute Main made another fine save to deny Davies from 10 yards, but Buckie held out.
Frustration after bright start
Forres boss Steven MacDonald said: “We started well for the first five minutes and then lose a goal.
“Ben Barron had a superb run and shot and from my angle I thought it was in, it was unfortunate to hit the post.
“I thought we played really well in the first half, but for the first goal we give the ball away at a throw-in.
“Then we give Andy MacAskill space, Stuart Knight thinks he could have done better to parry it away and it’s quite a cheap goal.
“To lose a goal like that against Buckie after five minutes makes it really difficult.
“The boys think it’s offside (for the second goal), it’s easy to say but it’s difficult to tell.
“But credit to the boys they kept going in the second half and we had three or four good opportunities.”