Strathspey win was huge, says United assistant
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TURRIFF United assistant manager Graeme Mathieson hailed his players after they came from behind twice to win at Strathspey Thistle.
The Haughs side ended a wretched run of nine straight defeats – which stretched back to early October - with the thrilling fightback win at Seafield.
Confidence had been low in the Turriff camp given the circumstances and the defensive calamities that had seen them ship almost 40 goals in that sequence.
But number two Mathieson said that on this occasion, adopting defence as the best form of attack helped make the difference for United.
He exclaimed: “We did really well, especially going a goal behind, equalising, then going behind again.
“We’re delighted to get the three points, that was the big thing for us.
“We said to the boys at the start of the season it was like a mini-league we had, we looked who we could take points from and Strathspey were one of them.”
The former Cove Rangers co-manager admitted that a change in set-up was needed to try and tighten things up in their own third, and was pleased that the different approach paid off.
He continued: “We spoke to the players and said ‘look, we need to concentrate on not losing goals rather than trying to win games’ so we probably went into it a bit more defensively-minded as we will from now until the end of the season.
“We changed shape halfway through the game when we were 2-1 down to try and get a result and that worked for us.
“That’s what we’ll keep doing, it’s horses for courses and you approach every game differently.
“The thing about it is that they are a young team.
“It is difficult to get their heads up sometimes especially after some of the results they’ve had, there’s been a few doings.
“Credit to them on Saturday, I thought they were good, they played really well.”
Having finally broke their duck with only their third league win all campaign – the others coming away to Fort William and Strathspey at home – Turriff have popped up two places to 14th spot in the table.
And Mathieson says this victory will give the side the bit of faith that has been lacking somewhat in recent months when they host Keith this weekend.
He added: “Hopefully we’ll go into this week’s game with a bit of extra belief and new-found confidence.
“Three points makes a massive difference, you could tell that from the way they reacted at the end of the game so hopefully we can go on and string two or three wins results together.”
