Binos boss aims to strengthen side’s defensive slump
Stirling Albion manager Kevin Rutkiewicz admits his side will have to cut out the defensive lapses when they face Cowdenbeath at Forthbank on Saturday.
The Binos slumped to a 4-1 defeat away to title favourites Peterhead, whose goals came from Jack Leitch, Rory McAllister, Derek Lyle and Cammy Eadie before on-loan Hamilton Accies midfielder Ronan Hughes pulled one back with a few minutes remaining.
Two of the goals followed corner kicks and the second was from a simple ball down the middle that should have been dealt with as Albion’s five-game unbeaten streak came to an end.
Rutkiewicz said: “I thought we played the better football in terms of passing the ball but they did the ugly side of the game well and they backed that up by being clinical.
“I don’t think we played poorly in the first half but I thought we looked unable to cope with certain aspects of the game. We lost poor goals and there is no getting away from that – we’ve just got to learn from it.
“We got ourselves into some really good positions throughout the game but we didn’t take our chances and we didn’t deal with their front men.
“The young lads in the middle of the park did well and there were some nice phases of play but when the threat came to the business end they saw it off, whereas we struggled to cope with their threat.
“We had found a way to stay in games recently, and you need a bit of luck, but we’ve come up against a ruthless, clinical side. We’ll look at how we set the team up and whether we could have given them any more protection but every ball that went in the box Peterhead players got their head to.
“You can work on that until the cows come home but you are going to struggle if you don’t have the desire to go and put your head on something or at least make it a contest.
We’ll go and enjoy our Christmas and get back at it and look forward to next week.”
Cowdenbeath were 1-0 winners when the teams met at Central Park in October, despite playing an hour with 10 men, when Darren Barr was in caretaker charge of Stirling. Gary Bollan’s men had been on a fourmatch unbeaten run prior to losing 2-0 to leaders Edinburgh City at the weekend.
Long-term absentees Lee Hamilton and Mark Stewart are again set to be sidelined while midfielder Kevin Moon also missed the trip to Peterhead. Stirling haven’t played at home since beating Elgin City 5-2 on December 1, with the match against Albion Rovers a fortnight later postponed due to a frozen pitch.