Graeme Stewart believes Josh Peters has given Buckie Thistle an extra dimension in attack after the striker’s inspired display helped them reach the GPH Builders Merchants Highland League Cup semi-finals.
Since joining from Elgin City in July Peters has scored 18 goals.
Buckie manager Stewart said: “Josh setting up the second goal, in particular, was outstanding.
“He’s not just a goalscorer, a lot of people think he’s just a goalscorer, but he’s also got a bit of trickery about him and can run all day.
“Josh is a nightmare for defenders and I was delighted with him.
“We’ve probably lacked a natural goalscorer until we signed Josh.
“Kyle MacLeod and Sam Urquhart are great strikers, who can also play wide, and they’re both sort of target men.
“But having somebody that runs in behind is the hardest one to get and John McLeod was probably the last we had before Josh.
“Josh is dangerous and he’s given us a different dimension which we needed.”
Buckie’s three goals game in a 15-minute period in the first half.
Stewart added: “I’m really pleased to win, we didn’t start the game that well.
“The first 10 minutes was a bit scrappy with a lot of long balls and Formartine pick up a lot of second balls because they’re physically bigger than us.
“But after that we got the ball down and got it into the front four and I thought they couldn’t live with us for about 20 minutes.
“We scored three goals and maybe could have had more, but I’m raging with the goal we’ve let in.”
Quick-fire treble does the trick
Formartine started well enough with Mark Gallagher having a free-kick held by Lee Herbert and Julian Wade heading wide from an Aaron Norris cross.
But Buckie burst into life as an attacking force after 20 minutes.
They opened the scoring when Tom MacLennan’s ball into the box was sliced by Johnny Crawford attempting to clear and Peters nipped to slot beyond goalkeeper Ewen Macdonald.
In the 23rd minute it was 2-0 with Peters getting the better of Kieran Adams on the right flank before cutting the ball back for Scott Adams to rifle into the left corner.
Sam Pugh headed over from an Andrew MacAskill corner before Peters notched the third on 35 minutes.
Scott Adams 60-yard diagonal pass from left to right released the striker in behind and with Macdonald off his line Peters neatly lobbed the ball home.
United responded well as the interval approached. Mark Gallagher stung Herbert’s palms with a low drive before they netted on 43 minutes.
Matthew McLean’s long throw-in was glanced on by Kieran Adams for Graeme Rodger to head home at the back post.
Formartine’s comeback hopes were dented in the 54th minute when Ryan Spink was shown a straight red card by referee Joel Kennedy for a challenge on Joe McCabe.
McCabe was shown yellow by the whistler for pushing Spink in the aftermath of the incident.
The home side continued to battle until the final whistle despite the numerical disadvantage while Peters and Jack Murray were denied by Macdonald when Buckie pressed for a fourth.
Formartine frustration
Formartine boss Stuart Anderson said: “I’m frustrated, I don’t think Buckie have had to work for their goals.
“They were individual mistakes which is the frustration for me. In the first 20 minutes we had a couple of good chances and didn’t take them and before you know it it’s 3-0.
“It’s one of those days, the red card went against us. I don’t know if it was a red card – I’ll need to see it back – but my initial thought was that it’s probably a booking.
“Losing the second and third goals makes it very difficult and it’s the first time it’s probably happened to us.
“Credit to the lads when we went down to 10 men they gave us everything which is one positive.
“We huffed and puffed but Buckie move the ball really well so we had to do a power of work in the last 30 minutes and credit to the players for that.
“You want to compete in every competition which we’ve done relatively well this season, but these things happen and we’ll need to go again.”