Blues through in style: Stranraer 6 Brechin City 1

Stranraer served up a repeat performance of their win of Brechin City last week in the league, only this time it was in the CIS Cup and only 225 fans turned up to watch one of the most entertaining matches at Stair Park for years. At half-time it looks as though the Blues were on course to beat their own record for the highest win - a 7-0 victory over Brechin in 1965, but it wasn't to be.

Brechin started the game well with Marc Millar shot straight across the goal, but there was nobody to tap it in after 35 seconds.

In the 5th minute Stranraer took the lead through Alan Jenkins. A long ball played to Kevin Finalyson, who cut the ball back for Jenkins and his excellent curving shot found the top hand corner of the net.

Ian Harty made it 2-0 in the 17th minute when a bad clearance by David Hay deflected off Finalyson fell to Harty. From 45 yards he made no mistake. It seemed like eternity for it to go into the net.

Early Strikes
Jenkins - opened the scoring	Harty - hat-trick!

Brechin mounted an attack, but the threat was stopped, and a long pass from Wingate found Kerr, who ran into the box and his left foot shot was well saved by Hay in the City goal.

Harty added his second goal in the 26th minute. A neat through pass found Harty, and the forward tried to play it beyond the defender, but instead he got a lucky break and with the outside of his right foot he curled it into the far corner of the net. Billy McLaren went wild.

At this stage it was all Stranraer and rout seemed to be on the cards. A Kevin Finlayson cross was met by the head of Michael Moore who headed goalward, only to see Hay get his fingertips to the ball to tip it over the bar.

The resulting corner saw Moore's shot blocked and cleared for another corner. This corner was taken by Aitken, and was cleared but it came straight back to him. Gathering the ball Aitken fired in a decent cross which Fraser Wright headed into the arms of the City 'keeper.

Goal number three came in the 37th minute. An Aitken corner was headed upwards and Moore unleashed a thunderbolt of a volley, which went straight into the top corner of the goal.

With only four minutes of the half remaining, the Blues made it 5-0. Another good cross, this time it was by Kerr, found Ian Harty who had another fortunate break, and placed the ball home for his first hat-trick of the season.

Stranraer continued the pressure in the second half, but it was Brechin who were next to score, via a wicked deflection in the 63rd minute. Justin Skinner's piledriver from 30 yards was deflected past the helpless Hillcoat.

Only two minute later the Blues had regained their five goal lead. A bad clearance from Harry Cairney was picked up by Finalyson, and his cross let Lee Sharp in to make no mistake from 10 yards out.

Moore - goal number four	Sharp - goal number six

Substitute Lurinsky (coming on for Paul Kerr) almost scored three goals in the closing 30 minutes. In the first effort Lurinsky found himself 1 on 1 with the keeper who blocked his shot. In the second Lurinsky's shot was tipped over the bar, while the third attempt saw the forward nut-megging Harry Cairney to slip through only to see the 'keeper block his shot

OVERALL SUMMARY- What more could you ask for. A thrilling performance by the all the team. Six well taken goals, and many positive aspects of the game. The only negative aspect was when Dexi Wingate has injured.

STRANRAER MOM- Ian Harty, hat-trick hero. What a game. You couldn't ask more from your striker. His goals had class and from this performance today he should be a Division 1 player..

Attendance: 225