Keeper Gary’s ready to battle
Gary Woods aims to force his way into Hamilton boss Martin Canning’s plans but says the battle for the first-team jersey is part of a goalkeeper’s life.
Woods is currently up against Darren Jamieson for the No 1 shirt but with Canning looking to bring in another shot-stopper, he knows it could be another fight, having played second fiddle to on-loan Norwich keeper Remi Matthews for much of last season.
Woods said:“i was disappointed not to get put in last season after injury.
“But that’s that, it’s a game of football – but I’m here, working hard and we’ll see what the season brings.
“You only have one shirt to fill, it’s the way goalkeeping is that another person’s downfall is your gain most of the time. But there are a couple of us in, so we’ll just work hard and see what happens.”
Woods has enjoyed pre-season so far and is looking forward to getting stuck in to the Betfred Cup Group G opener at East Kilbride on Saturday and the Premiership season when it rolls round next month. He said: “Pre-season hasn’t been bad, we had nine days away in Malaga, which was tough with double sessions every day.
“And we played our first game on Saturday, a 1-0 win over Airdrie [with Rakish Bingham scoring].
“It was a good work-out and it could have been anything, really – we had a lot of chances, defended really well and kept the ball well. In the first half it was a good first game after a tough week.
“The league has got tougher with Hibs coming up and a lot of teams are strengthening.
“For us we just need to keep a good balance – and the main thing is that we start scoring goals.
“With the Betfred Cup, these games can be interpreted as pre-season but it is a cup competition.
“We want to go through in the cup, first and foremost, take these four games and then after that we’ll think about Aberdeen.
“They’ve lost a few players and gained a few. It’s never easy going to Pittodrie but we will go up there to put on a good show.”