David Whitelaw's last minute goal was scant consolation for a Bute side which was perhaps undone by a degree of complacency after their relatively straightforward Camanachd Cup win in the teams' meeting the previous week.

But Lovat were determined not to lose out to the same team for two games in a row, and with the addition of a few experienced heads and some enforced positional changes, the Kiltarlity side showed they had learned the lessons handed out in that cup defeat to battle to a win which turns the relegation dog fight well and truly into a three horse race.

Bute were forced into a few personnel changes from that cup defeat, with Roberto Zavaroni sidelined after picking up a knee ligament injury in training and Gordon McMillan starting a four-game ban, handed down just two days before the game by the Camanachd Association's disciplinary committee after his sending-off against Oban Camanachd back in May.

Their absences earned Hector Whitelaw a place in the starting line-up after his own recent injury, but Lovat stuck to the returning Bute skipper like glue throughout the match, knowing full well the danger he could cause if allowed room to run the game.

The hosts made three defensive changes on the previous week, and it was they who made the most impressive start, calling Bute keeper Kevin Queen into action early on with a couple of dangerous forays upfield.

Bute enjoyed only a slight advantage in terms of possession in the opening stages, but the visitors soon got into the game and started creating chances of their own.

Hector Whitelaw forced the Lovat keeper into a good save and John McCallum failed to find the target when clean through on goal with only the keeper to beat, while Bute also hit the post twice as it began to look like Lovat might wilt if the visitors could only score the all important opening goal.

Ali Carmichael and Stevie MacKellar also had attempts on goal in the opening 45 minutes, but neither was able to hit the target and the first half ended with the game still goalless.

Lovat had a slight wind advantage in the second half, and Bute were soon made to pay for those missed first half opportunities, Calum MacAulay firing home the opening goal five minutes after the break with a 25-yard strike which seemed to catch Queen slightly unsighted as the ball bore down on him.

The sending-off of Lorne Mackay in last week's cup game forced the Lovat coaching staff to move Martin Bell from full back to full centre, but the positional change did the hosts no harm at all, with Bell dictating much of the play from the middle of the park.

Bute kept plugging away, hoping the equalising goal would come sooner or later, but as so often happens when you're on the losing team, the second half seemed to pass in a blur - and it felt like no time at all before Queen was picking the ball out of the back of the net for the second time, MacAulay putting Lovat in a commanding position with a second goal very similar to his first ten minutes from the end.

Only after losing a second goal did Bute really get angry, and the Lovat goal was subjected to some severe pressure in the closing stages, but Whitelaw's goal in the 89th minute - a sweet strike from some 25 yards - was too late to alter the final outcome, and it was a decidedly shell-shocked Bute team which trooped dejectedly off the park at the final whistle, knowing that they face a huge battle between now and the end of the season to cling on to their hard-won top flight status.

* That battle returns to Rothesay this Saturday, July 26, when Bute are at home to Oban Camanachd in another must-win Premier League fixture - Oban have already beaten Bute twice this season, in the league and the Macaulay Cup, but on each occasion the Mossfield Park side were decidedly fortunate to take full points in the face of a repeated onslaught from the men in red.

Throw-up at the Meadows is at 2.30pm.

* Elsewhere, the Camanachd Association has announced that Bute's Scottish Hydro-Electric Camanachd Cup semi-final against Fort William will take place at Winterton Park, Inveraray, on Saturday, August 9, and that Charles Young has been appointed to referee the game. More info to follow soon.