Max Christie praises hat-trick hero Jamie McCormack as Bo’ness United as crush Edinburgh University to go top

Right back Jamie McCormack was the standout for Bo’ness with an unlikely hat-trick, while Declan Hughes a netted penalty and Dan Watt added a fifth late on.

Christie said: “Jamie’s energy and enthusiasm for the game is massive. He’s a force of nature when he’s pressing, he’s competitive, and I am really pleased with him.

“He’s been about. He was at Wigan, at Hearts and at Morton. He’s a fantastic lad. He just needs to stay on the park and behave. He is much loved at the club. He’s a big character and sets standards.”

Lowland League action from East Peffermill, where Bo'ness United ran out comfortable winners against Edinburgh University. Picture: Scott Thomson

Building on Saturday’s opening-day 3-0 defeat of Cumbernauld Colts, Bo’ness were too strong for the students and have set their stall out early as they bid to improve on last season’s 11th-place finish.

“I thought we played well at times,” added Christie. “We started well and then we started passing the ball about slowly and looked like we didn’t want to score a goal, which can happen.

“You can sometimes making bad decisions and taking too many touches; we’ve all seen that movie before when an equaliser can turn it in to a completely different game, and that was my worry, but it never happened, thank God.

“Our football was quite entertaining at times I thought. It’s still early but it was a good win for us. We are still trying to get our fitness up.

“This is our second full season [in the Lowland League]. Last year we managed to get a team together, I think we used 38 players throughout last season and some of our performances reflected that. We were disjointed and what not.

“I think we’ve recruited quite well and we will see where we go with it. I am happy with what we’ve got, we’ve still got Zander Miller, who is a proven goalscorer, he’s about fit.

“We’ve also got Jack Smith and Jamie Hamilton who we signed for East Stirling to come back, so they are three big players for us.”