Bryan Gilfillan has returned to Threave Rovers – this time as a player.
The former Annan and Peterhead veteran has signed for the club five years after he quit as manager without taking charge of a game.
He made his first appearance in the black and white in last week’s win over Stranraer and featured in Saturday’s SFA South Region Challenge Cup win over Lochar Thistle.
Threave boss Vinnie Parker said: “He’s been training with us for maybe five or six weeks. He’s been looking after himself away from training and we had a shortage at centre half against Stranraer last Wednesday.
“We had the option to bring him in and he did very well against Stranraer. He made a massive difference and has a wealth of experience and we were fortunate enough to bring him in to sign him.”
Dan Carmichael put Threave into an early lead on Saturday and the former Queen of the South and Hibs winger doubled the lead with less than half an hour gone.
Thomas Bowden got one back for the visitors but Alex Henderson scored to ensure Threave went into the break two goals to the good.
That became three when a free-kick from Gilfillan was sliced into the Lochar net by a home defender and when Aiden Kerr made it five it was game over, a late Dan Armstrong goal scant consolation.
Parker said: “It’s a wee bit embarrassing Dan is playing at this level. He could easily be playing top flight football. He’s unbelievable to watch and is great for the other boys to play with. He could probably have scored another four or five.
“We had the luxury of watching the game back on Sunday and from that I thought we were a lot better than when I was watching it on Saturday.
“We got the job done. They are difficult opposition, They just sit in and Scott Wilby has them pretty well drilled. Liam Robertson up front caused us problems with his size and his feet.”
Having beaten Stranraer and Lochar in the last week, Threave now have to do it all again.
This weekend sees them go to Stranraer in the league and seven days later they go back to Lochar.
Parker added: “If we can get a repeat of this week we’ll be happy with it.
“It’ll be tough because I’d imagine Allan Jenkins at Stranraer will have them up for it. They have some decent young players, I just think on Wednesday night when we played them everything just clicked for us.
“We were probably unplayable and I expect a different game on Saturday.”
Threave have Ewan Gourlay and Ross Green available again but Adam Uphill and Liam Patterson are still out.
