11/03/2020

KEY ROLE: Cove Rangers midfielder Fraser Fyvie was played in a more forward position against Stirling Albion and scored a cracker of a second goal.

COVE Rangers manager Paul Hartley has heaped praise on the players for the way they went about beating Stirling Albion 7-1 in our Ladbrokes League Two clash at Forthbank Stadium.
Cove were simply sensational as they ran their hosts ragged with Mitch Megginson (2), Jamie Masson (2), Fraser Fyvie, Harry Milne and Jordon Brown netting the goals in a new club record victory at SPFL level.
“The players were absolutely magnificent,” said Paul.
“It was one of the best performances I’ve been involved in as a manager.
“It was certainly our best performance of the season even though we also had a great win over Edinburgh City on the opening day.
“I would have liked a clean sheet too, we were a wee bit slack at the goal we conceded.
“But overall our performance was simply top class.
“We scored some great goals and some of our combination play, our speed and the way we pressed the ball, was fantastic.
“When we lost the ball the players really hunted it down and then played some very high standard football.
“Scoring seven goals in the manner that we did sent out another signal that we are a very good team.”
Paul is pleased the victory sent us 13 points clear of second placed Edinburgh City at the top of the table, but warned the players there is still a lot of hard work to be done if they want to still be in that position after we have played our final eight games.
“We are in a good place and looking strong but it’s now all about the next game and making sure we can repeat the sort of performance delivered in Stirling,” he said.
“We have to keep it going and I’m confident we can because we have a fantastic group of lads in that dressing room.
“The way we played offers a lot of encouragement for the tough task ahead.
“We were at a very tricky venue, Stirling are a team that get good results when you consider their home form hasn’t been as good as their away form.
“We also had some concerns about the pitch because of the heavy rain but some of our play on that pitch was magnificent.
“When I saw the pitch I asked the players to just do their best to play percentage football and stick to playing in the key areas that we felt could hurt Stirling.
“We also set things up so that Fraser Fyvie could play in a more advanced position and it ended up being a night to remember.
“We scored some brilliant goals and I can’t remember seeing a team playing better than we did in the first half.
“The sixth goal, where one winger crossed for the other ( Masson) to score with a header was very pleasing because those sort of moves are something we work on in training.
“This is no fluke in terms of our performance because this is how we prepare for every game, we do a lot of positional, attacking, stuff on how we want to hurt the opposition.
“We felt we could have been in positions like this in another 10 or 12 games this season but we’ve never really killed teams off the way we should have.
“Everything fell into place on this occasion though.
“The players showed a real hunger and desire to stamp their authority on the game and kept it going and were rewarded for that.”