Stirling Albion boss Darren Young admits his side are brimming with confidence after securing a second straight 4-1 win at Forfar.
The home side were a well-fancied pick to challenge at the top end of the League Two table in pre-season, but were blown away by the Binos – who moved to within seven points of leaders Dumbarton at the summit.
Once again, the visitors scored three goals in the opening half, with skipper Paul McLean nodding in from close range just after the half -hour mark, before Cammy Clark’s angled strike and Dale Carrick’s excellent header added to the lead.
Joshua Jack pulled one back for Forfar on the hour, but Kai Fotheringham added to his excellent start for Albion with the fourth shortly afterwards.
Gaffer Young said his side had to weather an early storm, but admitted he borrowed some inspiration from Steve Clarke’s Scotland side in devising the Albion’s corner kick opener.
Young said: “I’m delighted because it’s a hard place to come and in the first 10-15 minutes, they could have taken the lead, but Blair kept us in the game and we dealt with the pressure well.
“We were brilliant defensively and then once we got the ball forward and started playing, we came into the game a lot more and overall I think we deserved it.
“We passed it well and tried to get them isolated and the corner is actually something we spoke about.
“It was one that Scotland did on Tuesday night [the 3-0 home win against Ukraine], we thought we had the opportunity to do it, one around the front and one round the back and it was perfect.
“I feel as if the confidence is there with the players and that comes from winning and good performances.
“It was maybe lacking a wee bit because we kept making mistakes but it’s been a settled team in the last three or four games and right through the team, there’s a right good work ethic.
“The players sometimes give me some stick about the running they get at training but you see how it pays off when you’re dominating at the end of games.”
Stirling now face the final game of the opening quarter at East Fife on Saturday, before beginning the second round of fixtures with matches against fellow promotion hopefuls Stenhousemuir and Dumbarton.
Young added: “Overall, it’s a brilliant three points, four goals and takes us up to second now.
“It was good to get the goals spread about. We spoke about not trying to rely on the strikers and forwards, trying to get more goals from set-pieces.
“We’ve got 14 points from this quarter and one more game to go.
“We spoke about getting nine points from these three games to get us to close that gap but as long as we look after ourselves, then whatever will happen elsewhere will happen.”
The winning numbers for the September 21 Stirling Albion Supporters’ Trust Lotto were 9, 10, 21 and 24.
There was no winner of the overall jackpot prize, with three players taking home £20 runners-up prizes.
The jackpot for next week’s draw now sits at £3,900.
