Peterhead          2

Cameron (20)

Brown (50)

East Fife              1

Denholm (34’minutes)

Ten-man Peterhead stood strong to earn a 2-1 win over East Fife at Balmoor to secure their third league success of the season.

Lyall Cameron grabbed his third goal of the season to put the Blue Toon ahead however Danny Denholm levelled before the break.

Skipper Scott Brown thumped Peterhead ahead for a second time early in the second half however it quickly became a ‘backs to the wall performance’ as Gary Fraser was sent off for an off the ball incident.

After starting recent games against Forfar and Falkirk at too slow a pace Peterhead were out the blocks quickly against Darren Young’s side with Scott Brown bringing out an early save from Brett Long.

Peterhead took the lead on 20 minutes thanks to the quick thinking of Kyle Bailey who had ventured forward for a corner. The visiting defence failed to clear Ryan Conroy’s delivery and Bailey, with his back to goal, looked up and fed the ball back to Cameron at the edge of the box and the on-loan Dundee youngster slammed home.

A solid tackle from Andrew McCarthy set up Fraser to have a shot at goal that Long needed two attempts to hold on 28 minutes however McCarthy hobbled off shortly afterwards after a knee knock.

Alan Cook came on and the disruption seemed to affect the hosts with East Fife equalising on 34 minutes when Jack Hamilton broke clear and rather than shooting the striker picked out Danny Denholm who tapped in.

Scott Brown was just off target with a shot before the break however five minutes into the second half the midfielder got everything inch perfect as he lashed home a volley from 25 yards to put Peterhead back in front.

Thoughts of going on and increasing the advantage became thoughts of seeing out the 2-1 score-line after Fraser was dismissed on 65 minutes for an incident that occurred off the ball.

Peterhead responded to Fraser’s dismissal by bringing on Isaac Layne for Cameron and dropping Steven Boyd into a midfield role and adopting a 4-4-1 formation.

The Fife side started to enjoy plenty of possession as they pushed and probed for an opening and it looked like they had grabbed a late equaliser when Hamilton headed goalward late on however Joshua Rae dived on top of the ball.

The final whistle sounded shortly afterwards and the three points remained in Peterhead with McInally saying: “The players deserve great credit for staying as well-organised as they did. I am not convinced that Gary deserved to be sent off but I will take my time and consider whether an appeal is the right thing to do.”

Peterhead

Rae, Bailey, MacKenzie, J Brown, Freeman, Fraser, McCarthy (Cook 30),  S Brown, Conroy, Cameron (Layne 66), Boyd (Lyle 85)

Unused substitutes – Kesson, Bakar, Wilson