Eagles must fight to flee relegation zone
Coach wants team to crawl off after Greenock clash
Perthshire Rugby coach Rory McKay wants his players to be crawling off the pitch come the end of Saturday’s crucial clash with Greenock.
Relegation out of the national league set-up is on the horizon for the Eagles, who currently sit third bottom of the pile and 12 points from the safety zone.
McKay knows the importance of every single remaining game of the season.
And there is no better chance to pick up a bonus point win than this weekend’s trip to Greenock Wanderers, a side rooted to the foot of the table.
Attack will be the order of the day and McKay said: “We’ve got a really good team heading down to Greenock which I’m happy about.
“We haven’t played in two weeks now and the last game was a disappointing finish against Haddington. I felt we deserved to win that game.
“It’s a huge game this weekend. We need to win, and win well in order to keep moving forward.
“The bonus point win has to be the target.
“I want the guys to be crawling off the pitch at the final whistle.
“We can’t get over-awed with the game, we need to go out and play which they have been doing for the last few games.
“We need to play the game which works for us, which is the running game. I’m certainly looking forward to it. It’s so important to maintain where we are.”
Squeezed in between the ongoing Six Nations, McKay hopes his players can be inspired to victory.
He added: “Any time when the Six Nations was on, I always wanted to get out there and play. But I’m a bit of a big kid at heart.
“We’re lucky to have the three home weekend’s off to watch the Six Nations so we can enjoy it.”
McKay insists Shire need to take care of themselves and hope results go their way elsewhere.
“We’ve been a little bit hamstrung and haven’t had the same strength of squad as in previous years,” McKay explained.
“It’s the old cliche but we just need to take it one game at a time. When a game is done, you just need to forget about it and focus on the next one to keep pushing.
“We can’t rely on other results. But I’d expect Highland to win against Dalziel because they are still in with a shout of promotion.
Shire coach Rory McKay says his team will scrap for every ball
“We do need to keep an eye on the results of Dalziel and Orkney because we obviously don’t want them winning.
“We have Livingston and Greenock still to play - and teams in the bottom half of the table - which is a great opportunity for us.
“It’s not over. We’ll keep going and, hopefully, it can turn for us.”