Paul Hughes rounds Elgin keeper Humphrey Cholmondley to fire Brook Street into the lead.

With a clinical display, Brook Street romped to a 7-0 victory in Elgin this afternoon to maintain their unbeaten run andkeep their slenderest of title ambitions alive. Paul Hughes was the tormentor-in-chief scoring a hat-trick with the other goals coming from Aldo Pellone, Joe Anderson, Alex Marker and Diego Misuraca.

Athletic were 4-0 up after only sixteen minutes through Paul Hughes (2), Aldo Pellone and Joe Anderson, and with the home side opting to ‘park the bus’ for damage limitation at this point, and with the game won and big games coming up for Brook Street, it is perhaps understandable that the visitors took their foot off the pedal.

However a half-time pep talk from Fermín Romero saw them up their scoring efforts and those bore immediate fruit when Alex Marker pounced on a defensive error three minutes after the re-start to put Brook Street five-up.

Paul Hughes completed his hat-trick around the hour mark and Diego Misuraca completed the scoring midway through the half.

Asked about what he said to the players at half-time, Fermín Romero replied, “We just went through the gameplan again and told the players what we thought they could do differently. Elgin were playing all out defence so we had vary our play to break them down”.

“No hairdryers were involved”, he added with a grin.

“We played well within our limits and I think after we went four-up we lost our way a bit and weren’t going in for the kill”.

“After the break we started strongly, quickly scored and that set us up for a better performance throughout the half, albeit we only scored another two goals after Alex’s”, he added.

“The most important things to come from the game were, we kept our winning momentum, set ourselves up nicely for a huge game against St Andrew Paisley next weekend, and possibly the most important things at this time of the season, we didn’t pick up any more injuries or suspensions. It was a good day all in all”.

In the other matches, Paisley Pirates won 6-2 away to Winbat wonderers, St Andrew Paisley snapped their two-game losing streak with a 7-0 win at home to Oboy shot, and despite looking to offload half their squad Badger Loyal won 6-2 in Inverness.