Saints seek to finish in style Boss plans to end season on a high
St Johnstone Women’s manager Jason McCrindle is targeting three wins from three to close off the season.
The Perth side sit second bottom of the Scottish Women’s Premier League 2 but recent performances have boosted spirits in the camp.
Now McCrindle is urging his players to finish the campaign in style and bag wins against Partick Thistle, Hamilton Accies and Hutchison Vale.
Saints can still catch Dundee United and Glasgow Girls in the standings, but results will have to go their way elsewhere.
“We want to finish as strong as we can and build momentum in the remaining games,” McCrindle said.
“We’ve lost one in the last few matches so are looking at the positives. Things have been going our way in recent weeks.
“Performances haven’t changed in terms of what we were doing at the start of the season. Now it seems everything has clicked into place to start getting some results. The players deserve all the credit for that.
“We’re focusing on ourselves but of course we want to catch the team above us before the end of the season.
“We’re looking to keep the squad together and know the areas where we need to add. We’ve already identified players we want to bring in for next year. That will hopefully take us to the next level - and that next level is to go and compete with teams at the top throughout the whole season.”
Saints certainly competed last Sunday and lost out 1-0 against Hearts, who currently top the standings.
“Going by Sunday’s result, we’re not far away from competing at the top,” McCrindle added. “There was nothing in the game, nothing in it at all. Their goal came from a set-piece which shows how tight it was.
“If we had a couple of decisions go our way then we would have got something out of the game. We were denied a stonewall penalty.
“There is nothing between the sides at the top of the league and where we are when we compete and play.
“There has been unavailability at times and a wee bit of inconsistency in performances. We’ll look to address that during the break, come back as strong as we can and compete next year.”
McCrindle will again call on Emma Flynn-Scott and Louise MacDiarmid - who usually turn out for Jeanfield Swifts - for this weekend’s Partick game.
“We’re a couple short and have some injuries, so are down to the bare bones,” he explained. “We have players coming in for the game.
“Emma Flynn-Scott and Louise MacDiarmid have been training with us for a couple of weeks and were on the bench last Sunday.
“Between now and the end of the season we’ll be hoping to get them involved and get them a good runout. We’re hoping next year we can try promote the pathway into the team even further.”
On this Sunday’s opponents Partick, McCrindle said: “It will be another tough game for us, just like every game is in this league. We’ve been in a good place with a lot of confidence.
“The training has been good and the morale high so the message has been to just keep doing what we’ve been doing and we’ll get the rewards.”
Kick-off at McDiarmid Park on Sunday afternoon is 4pm and all support is welcome.