Bray Nets Treble

Mitch Megginson was suspended for this one with Declan Glass making the bench along with Gillingham & Coulson. For Inverness, Remi Savage returned to the heart of the defence after suspension with Mathew Strachan at left back and James Nolan on the bench along with Calum MacLeod.

The visitors flew out of the blocks with three or four early efforts. Adam Emslie was flagged offside when he 'netted' after ten minutes before Keith Bray rose highest to head in the opener three minutes later following a corner from Alfie Stewart. Ten minutes before the interval and Bray doubled our lead with another super strike on the break forward with Alfie. Twenty minutes from the end Alfie got his own hat-trick with assist No3 for Bray to bag his hat-trick of goals, shooting home from inside the box.

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Hat-Trick Hero (it's definitely three fingers)

The Icing is on the Cake 

As in recent weeks weeks we dominated the early exchanges with Keith Bray heading just wide off a corner after Billy Mckay had a shot deflected past the post, and another blocked, before Adam Mackinnon fired wide as we kept on the front foot. Alfie Stewart headed wide from a tight angle before Adam Emslie was adjudged to be offside as he tucked the ball into the net when Myles Gaffney played him in. Deservedly, our positive start paid off when we won a corner. Alfie Stewart swung it in to the near post where Bray leapt highest to glance the ball across goal and into the net for the first of his and Alfie's threesome. Connor Scully was close to connecting to a Fraser Fyvie cross as Cove looked to hit back immediately. However, it was the visitors that stretched their advantage on the counter when Ben Brannan, and Stewart combined neatly with Bray for the recent birthday boy to clip in his second of the afternoon ten minutes before the interval. 
HALF TIME: 0-2
Inverness' game management was important and we took the sting out of the home attacks time and time again with resolute defending in the third quarter of the game and denied Cove any real opportunities to get back into the game. Blair Yule had an effort blocked before Bray put the icing on the top of the birthday cake when, after good play down the right, wee Alfie stabbed a ball into his path inside the box for Keith to squeeze the ball through the keeper from twelve yards and complete his hat-trick. Stewart and Paul Allan had shots saved as we consolidated our advantage in the last twenty minutes with Cove not threatening Dibaga and the sea breeze was well and truly out of the Cove sails.
FULL TIME: 0-3 

WHAT A RESULT! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Give this lad the freedom of the City. He does like a goal against Cove, but three is simply fantastic in a match we really needed all three points.

With all results favourable this gives us a three point cushion over Annan and closes the gap to one point on Kelty above us and sets up a six-pointer against them next week.

What a pity, arguably our best result of the season has been upstaged by Dumbarton pumping Kelty Hearts 6-0 in at New Central Park 

Pos	Team	Pld	Gd	Pts
1	Arbroath	32	19	60
2	Cove R	32	14	49
3	Stenny	32	8	49
4	Queen o Sth	32	0	45
5	Alloa Athletic	32	7	44
6	Montrose	32	-5	39
7	Kelty Hearts	32	-7	37
8	Inverness CT	32	4	36
9	Annan Ath	32	-26	33
10	Dumbarton	32	-14	16

It's a thumbs up from Scott 

Leaked footage has emerged this week of Keith Bray developing his new tricks ahead of the visit to Cove. He was asked by one punter to see if he could pull the rabbit out of the hat at Cove. He went one better and pulled the rabbit out of the hat whilst juggling three balls and felt this might be an omen of things to come. It really was the icing on the cake for Keith.

As Clare Grogan said; Happy Birthday!

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