East Kilbride Thistle hit TEN goals to end losing strike, delighting boss

Aaron Connolly hailed his “relentless” East Kilbride Thistle side for responding to a recent run of heavy defeats with a 10-1 annihilation of Saltcoats Victoria.

The Jags boss had watched his side concede 21 goals in their previous four outings, but they dished out a hammering of their own on Saturday against the side sitting bottom of the West of Scotland Fourth Division.

Michael Blues hit a hat-trick, Jamie Scullion was at the double, Callum Grant grabbed a brace on his debut, while Ben Alston and Ross Kennedy bagged one each amid a Saltcoats own goal.

Thistle are eighth in the table, six points off the promotion spots, and after inflicting Salcoats’ heaviest league defeat of the campaign, Connolly said: “I am thrilled with the performance and by the outcome of the game.

“Saltcoats have had their difficulties this year and I do feel for them down there at the bottom of the table, but we had a job to do on Saturday and the players performed admirably.

“They probably could have had a few more goals for their efforts as well. They were absolutely relentless.

“The challenge for them was to go and put on a performance and win the match. That was the expectation and they did that and a bit more.

“I thought we were excellent on the day. We started off really brightly and once we got going we didn’t stop.

“That was a big thing for us, not getting complacent.

“We got ourselves ahead and we wanted to put a bit of a message out.

“We’ve come through a tough six weeks after the St Peter’s game [a 2-1 loss] at home where we felt hard done by.

“I don’t think we reacted particularly positively to that. I felt the confidence of the players took a knock but we’ve put that behind us now and we can look forward again.