Tony Docherty insisted that Kilmarnock must carry forward a winning mentality following a straightforward victory over Fraserburgh to kickstart their Premier Sports Cup campaign.
The Ayrshire side took an early lead at Bellslea Park through a Ross Aitken own goal, while Fraser Murray and Kyle Lafferty also got on the scoresheet. Sean Butcher scored for the hosts who won last season’s Highland League championship and put up a decent showing against their full-time visitors.
Killie assistant manager Docherty said: “It’s important to build momentum and that’s off the back of the pre-season games as well. We went through that undefeated, we only drew one game, and it was important to keep that going.
“We’re always looking for better and we didn’t want to concede a goal today. We’ll look at that and analyse it and see how we could have done better to prevent that.
“But on the other side, we could have scored five or six and maybe we would have done a little bit later on in the season when we’re a bit more clinical and polished in terms of our execution.
“But the important thing is getting the momentum and we take the win from today and we look at the next game against Partick Thistle.
“It’s important you build a mentality of winning and we’ve got that at the moment. We’ll keep that going but we constantly aim to keep improving.
“It was a sticky pitch but I think by and large we’re pleased with the outcome. We could have had more goals but I would have preferred to keep a clean sheet.”
Killie were clearly intent to get this game wrapped up as quickly as possible and Paul Leask made a good save inside the opening two minutes to deny Oli Shaw the opener after Lafferty had nodded the ball down to him in the box.
However, the fans who had made the 215 mile journey to northern Aberdeenshire didn’t have to wait long to see their side score and an Aitken own goal saw the visitors take the lead after seven minutes. Rory McKenzie swung in a delivery from the right flank towards Shaw who put enough pressure on the home defender to force him into a mistake, although the striker did run away celebrating as if he got the final touch.
Murray added a second in the 17th minute with a freekick from 25 yards. Leask showed him far too much space to his right side and the winger didn’t need a second invitation to curl his effort over the defensive wall and into the bottom corner.
Leask then made two good saves to deny Danny Armstrong and Lafferty from adding a third for Killie before the break before the hosts returned for the second period with a display of ambition that they had lacked in the opening half.
Lewis Duncan came closest when he dragged an effort wide from the edge of the area Zach Hemming also had to be alert to catch a Paul Young effort from 20 yards.
The Premiership side quickly regained control of proceedings and McKenzie went close with a dinked effort that floated just wide of Leask’s left-hand post. Murray really should have scored the third when he reacted quickest to his effort that bounced off the post back to his feet but he shot over the bar from a handful of yards.
Fraserburgh thought they had got back into it when Butcher poked the ball past Hemming in the 69th minute but almost straight from kick off, Lafferty put the game to bed when he headed home from close range after Armstrong had delivered an excellent cross.
The Broch continued to battle away and Hemming made a good save to push away a Butcher freekick that appeared destined for the top corner.
Fraserburgh manager Mark Cowie was left disappointed that they failed to build on the goal they scored.
He said: “That’s probably the worst bit. If we’d kept them at bay for a 10, 15 minutes longer, it doesn’t matter how good you’re are, then you maybe start getting edgy in the final minutes. It didn’t happen, Lafferty’s got a free header and they’ve killed the game 3-1.”
