Just when fans thought it couldn’t get any worse after leaking six to Whitehill Welfare, Gretna turn up at Yarrow Park.

And for 90 minutes they tore Selkirk’s back four to pieces.

Souters manager Steve Forrest admits his team aren’t good enough. He said: “I will wake up tomorrow with a lot of feelings and the biggest one will be embarrassment. Gretna pounced on every mistake we made.

“If you don’t fix the problems you have they are just going to keep happening – we’ve found that out today. We have young players who are struggling to play at the higher level every week. We will remedy the problem and that will mean bringing in more experienced players – we will have two, three or maybe four experienced players coming in.” The onslaught began on 15 minutes with Brandon Longcake rattling home a fantastic shot past stand-in keeper Willie Stewart.

Iain Anderson had already gone close a couple of times as the visitors pushed a ragged-looking home defence backwards.

A simple through-ball on 19 minutes led to Scott Milligan slotting a second into the bottom corner.

And just after the restart the Raydale club forced a corner, which Anderson converted at the near post.

Longcake was unfortunate not to make it four on the half hour as his spectacular shot from 25 yards crashed against the post.

Selkirk responded with Jordan Finnie’s effort being deflected past the post. And on 36 minutes the former Whitehill player teed up Phil Addison to drill home a goal and reduce the deficit.

Any hopes that the match could turn were swiftly stamped out as Jamie Pyper headed Sam Atkinson’s threatening freekick into his own net on 42 minutes. And just two minutes later Pyper’s diving header from another Atkinson freekick also flew past Stewart.

The game was all over at 5-1 – but Gretna’s scoring continued. Anderson made it six on 55 minutes.

Milligan enjoyed acres of space to snatch his second on 68 minutes and then complete his hat-trick with quarter of an hour remaining.

Addison did smack the post for the home team in a rare attack, but that was as good as they got.

And the rout was completed on 88 minutes as Longcake smashed the ball into the net from the edge of the box to make it 9-1.

Selkirk. W Stewart, F Matthews (O See 63), S Mackenzie, J Pyper, S Guiney (M Samson 63), J Finnie, D Johnston, J McInally, J Tonelle, P Addison (L Henderson 83) & J Harley.