League One's top trio dish out a week of woe for Warriors

“Bitterly disappointed” manager, Brown Ferguson, lamented his side’s defensive record: “It’s been a very, very hard week for us. We’ve got to learn to stop conceding goals as easily as that.”

Ferguson also praised on his men for not letting their heads go down and continuing to trouble the Peterhead defence late on.

“When we put our minds to it, we play with a real purpose and endeavour that creates chances and if we’d been a bit more clinical ourselves in that stage of the game the game would have been a lot closer.

“I’ve had a good debrief with players. With seven games to go, we know exactly the situation that we’re in. We’re just trying to pick up what they are capable of doing. They’ve shown that for 60-70 minutes against Ayr United the other night probably around 45 minutes today, they need to combine that for a 90 minute game.”

Peterhead broke the deadlock after 13 minutes when a free kick from the right wing conceded by Euan Murray eventually found Jamie Stevenson who finished from close range.

The hosts began to show some impetus going forward after the first half hour. Colin McMenamin and Stephen Stirling both tested keeper, Graeme Smith.

The visitors also looked dangerous going forward as Shane Sutherland saw an effort cleared off the line by Ross Meechan.

Sutherland would not be denied in the 43rd minute when Ryan Strachan found space to lay him off to blast home from outside the box.

The hosts looked to get back into the game following the restart but were down 3-0 in the 53rd minute. McCabe felled Leighton McIntosh in the box and was lucky to only receive a yellow card. Sutherland converted the resulting penalty.

McIntosh, introduced for the injured Stevenson in the first half, added his name to the scoresheet in the 65th minute, rifling home from distance.

The Warriors rallied to produce a series of goal scoring opportunities. Mark Gilhaney saw a goal bound effort cleared off the line before Lewis Small inexplicably hit the crossbar from close range after a well weighted ball from the captain.

Substitute Carlos Mazana Martinez was finally able to reduce the deficit, and in some style, ten minutes from time with a venomous left footed strike from long range which gave the keeper no chance.

A feisty closing six minutes saw four yellow cards dished out, two for poor challenges by Jamie Redman and Andy Rodgers.