East of Scotland: More to come from Bo'ness says Max Christie

Fraser Keast (inset) was on target for Bo'ness

Bo’ness United maintained their four-point lead at the top of the East of Scotland League with a 3-1 defeat of ten-man Newtongrange Star – and boss Max Christie says there is still a lot more to come from his unbeaten side.

The Newtown Park men have been able to build up a head of steam at the top of the table, while several of their rivals have juggled league business with their Scottish Cup exploits.

Goals from striker Brian Ritchie, Tom Grant and Fraser Keast downed Newtongrange, who netted through Kayne Paterson, with Steven Thomson seeing red in the opening half for the visitors.

Christie has been delighted with their start to the campaign and he feels his side can get even better as they familiarise themselves with the new Newtown Park surface – the new facility opened in September after an arson attack in June delayed the project.

“We’re doing alright, we’re battling hard,” said Christie. “We’ve got a new pitch and our first seven games were away from home, and then we moved onto the new pitch.

"We’ve found playing on the new AstroTurf and trying to get the run of the ball a wee bit trickier, so our football hasn’t been as fluent as we would like at times.

“We’re competing well and we’ve got a lot of good players here. We are under no illusions we are still a work in progress and we’re trying to play better. We’ve not been in full flow quite yet, we can pass the ball better.

“Our results have been great, but we need to keep working on our performances, keep them going and improve them.”

Christie continued: “It’s a very good league, you just need to look at what happened last week with Penicuik beating Stenhousemuir 3-0 and Broxburn beating Cowdenbeath 3-0.

“We’ve managed to get a lot of games in because we aren’t in the Scottish Cup and we are out a couple of cups. We’ve stolen a march if you like in the amount of league games we’ve played, so it’s been good to get the points on the board. They are a motivated bunch, fit and organised, and hard to beat.”

Cuikie win but Broxburn undone by Sauchie

Elsewhere, Penicuik Athletic didn’t suffer any Scottish Cup hangover as they put four past Crossgates in a 4-1 victory, with Paul Tansey netting a double, while Liam O’Donnell and Lambert Kataleza both got on the scoresheet.

Broxburn Athletic crashed back down to earth with a 3-0 loss at Sauchie.