St Andrews United: Lewis Sawers hits quickest hat-trick in club's history to delight manager Robbie Raeside

Sawers’ treble had United 3-0 up inside the first 13 minutes, with further goals from Micheil Russell Smith and a Sean Cunningham own goal making it 5-0 by half-time before the hosts pulled one back via debutant Michael Gould.

But Scott Reekie and Ryan Dignan then rounded off the scoring for St Andrews in the second half to leave Raeside over the moon.

He said: "It was a great team performance first half on Saturday – to be 5-0 up away from home was incredible – and Lewis was on fire. He was a constant threat to them.

"There was a defensive mix-up between their goalie and a defender for Lewis’s first goal. But after that it was a couple of good finishes I thought.

"We expected a far tougher game at Thornton. They had drawn 2-2 at Whitburn the week before and Whitburn are top of the league.

"I think Thornton were short of players at the back and one of their defenders limped off after about 20 minutes when we were 4-0 up.

"But it was still a phenomenal result for us, a great performance. After Lewis’s hat-trick, what pleased me most was winning the second half after conceding early.”

Saints are second with 49 points from 21 games, just four points adrift of Whitburn, so Raeside’s men look a good bet for promotion ahead of hosting bottom club Hawick Royal Albert this Saturday with kick-off at 2.30pm.

"We are certainly not taking anything for granted,” Raeside side. “I’ve been in the game long enough to know that there’s still a long way to go.

"It’s an old cliche but we have to take one game at a time. We just have to remain focused week to week.

"Potentially complacency could be a problem this Saturday but my job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.

"I will be emphasising to the players how difficult a game it will be. When you play teams in the bottom half of the table they can be very stuffy, they’re all fighting for points.

"There’s no point beating Thornton 7-1 if we don’t take care of Hawick.

"We only won 1-0 down at Hawick with a goal five minutes from the end which shows how tough it can be.”