St Cuthbert Wanderers top of the South of Scotland League tree at Christmas

St Cuthbert Wanderers will be top of the tree at Christmas.

Saturday’s 4-1 win over Caledonian Braves kept them a point ahead of Threave Rovers in the race for the South of Scotland League title – a gap they extended to four points when they thumped Lochar Thistle on Wednesday night.

Saints took the lead against the French students through Russell Williamson and were two clear at the break thanks to Thomas Kelly’s free-kick.

Saints players congratulate Russell Williamson on opening the scoring. (Bobby Geddes)

When Kelly scored a third just before the hour mark it was game over. The visitors did pull one back before a Saints trialist completed the scoring with a tremendous lob.

Gaffer Jordan Williamson said: “We explained the dangerous nature of the fixture in terms of maybe being over confident and expecting the three points to be ours against the younger players that are learning their trade.

“I thought our players gave respect to the opposition in the right manner and that’s why we had such a comfortable victory. They could have easily turned up and thought the three points would have been a given, which would have been the wrong thing to do as we could have struggled.

“It’s just a shame we conceded late on so didn’t pick up a clean sheet.

“We had a couple of trialists on the bench to give us different options going into the second half of the season and to try out a couple of things. We had two players suspended and four on the sidelines so we needed to make sure we had cover.

(Bobby Geddes)

“There are also a couple of players we have been speaking to and with the situation we were in it was the ideal opportunity to bring them in to see if there was potential to bring them in to bolster the squad.”

Last night was Saints’ final competitive fixture of 2021 and they won’t be in action again until they face Creetown on January 8.

Williamson plans to use the break to have a further look at the trialists as he looks to bolster his squad ahead of the title run-in.

He said: “We’ll have some in over the Christmas period to look at as we have three and a half weeks before Creetown.

“We have a couple of guys in on trial and we’re just tying up the finer details with a couple of other players to join after their hectic Christmas work schedule.”