DAVE Cormie led Huntly to SFA North Challenge Cup glory last season but this term he has already led his in-form Locos side to a resounding success at the home of their local rivals.

It was a result which sets up a home tie with Clach's conquerors Golspie Sutherland next Saturday - a tie Big Red is at pains to emphasise must be taken seriously.

"Golspie will be a team to be reckoned with especially with Gordon Connelly around spraying the passes.

"We got the final outcome we wanted to get through to this stage. A difficult game to judge how well or indifferent we played due to Huntly losing two players to red cards.

"We weathered the storm of Huntly's opening 20 minutes because I thought they had us on the back foot and that gave them the impetus to keep coming at us. From a manager's point of view, for the second week in a row, very pleasing to come from a goal down and win comfortably."

Huntly got off to the perfect start in this game with a goal in just 33 seconds The game had barely began when Stuart Soane jinked his way past two players in the middle of the park and threaded the ball down the left for Bruce Cormie. His ball to the back post was met by Russell Guild who duly netted.

However there was a warning for Huntly in the 19th minute when Neil Gauld got in behind Mike Morrison and forced a fine stop out of Ross Bremner. The keeper had to repeat the feat just a minute later when Gauld was set free by a Steven Park ball through.

Halfway through the half controversy erupted when the visitors were awarded a penalty kick. Neil Gauld and Mike Morrison went for the ball and the striker got their first. The referee deemed Morrison to have impeded him. Gauld took the opportunity to net a leveller from the penalty spot with glee.

The game was turning in the Locos' favour and Mark Smith blazed over the bar just a minute later. The former Vale man may have missed that one but he made no mistake when Richie Singer got clear on the right wing and delivered a cross in that the summer signing bulleted past Ross Bremner with his head.

Things went from bad to worse for Huntly when a fracas between Tommy Wilson and Mike Ewen led to Ewen seeing red on his Huntly debut for retaliating. Mike Morrison was also booked for his protests and, after consultations with both officials, the ref added a yellow for Tommy Wilson to the crime count.

Mike Morrison was to follow Ewen into the showers in the 66th minute when he collected a second yellow card for clipping the heels of Neil Gauld as the Black and Golds were reduced to nine men.

It didn't take long for Inverurie to take advantage of the spaces at the back. Neil McLean went down the left and delivered the ball across for Neil Murray. Although his shot was blocked Neil Gauld was on hand to net his second and essentially kill off the tie.

Huntly's reign as Challenge Cup holders was well and truly over when Mark Smith supplied another trademark finish to round off the scoring.

Huntly: Bremner, Reid, Robertson, Redford (Lamberty 71), Morrison, Gray, Soane, Guild, Ewen, Cormie (Lonie 64), Craig. Subs not used: Garrett, Dorrat, Gray.
Inverurie Locos: Reid, Park, Buchan, Wilson, Simpson, Ross, Singer (Murray 62), Smith, Milne (Stewart 58), Gauld (Nicol 70), McLean. Subs not used: Andrew Bisset, Ross McWilliam.