There’s been a feeling since the season started that there are lots of goals in this new look Formartine side, but it took until half past three on Saturday for the flow to start.
After yet more rebounds from the woodwork and a hale hillock o’ near misses, Gary Wood forced in a pretty scrappy striker’s goal at the back stick to start a run of eight goals in an hour.
Usually we find any points gained at Princess Royal Park hard won, but this time they came on the back of a contest as one sided as I’ve seen in long enough.
Of course Formartine were good; very, very good at times and they worked their butts off too, but they were playing a side that looked tactically naïve enough to leave so much space in wide areas, that left back Stuart Smith almost based himself in an area just outside the left corner of their box and Scott Barbour played on and swapped wings with virtual impunity.
Vale’s attempts at attack were about as frequent and fertile as the droppings of a rocking horse – only two (arguably one) shots on target throughout.
I should be celebrating but I’m left scratching what little’s left on top of my head wondering how much this rout was the result of how good we were or how poor they were.
I suspect a bit of both and that Lossie will make life much harder for us next time out. I hope so because games as one sided as this can only strengthen the case for splitting SHFL into two divisions and I don’t think that in the long term that is the best structure for football in the North. Results at Clach and Wick don’t help my cause either.