Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
‘Cairn no. 2: We won’t get complacent
Gartcairn assistant Scott Mills insists his side won’t underestimate basement side Royal Albert on Saturday and told his players to make sure they’re not a scalp.
Mills says it’s time for the Airdrie side to step things up in the West of Scotland League Conference B despite colder weather kicking in; most of their upcoming games are on astroturf, while others are likely to have fixtures postponed.
That gives them an opportunity to get points in the bank and boost themselves from third spot, and Mills wants that to start against Albert.
Royal Albert have only one win and a draw from 18 games so far, but Mills says his players won’t take their foot off the gas.
He said: “we’ve dropped a few points against teams at the start of the season, so we know if you’re not on it, teams will punish you.
“Teams can take points off you and put you under pressure.
“Royal Albert have maybe not had the greatest season they’ve ever had, but I don’t think that will affect anything.
“They’ll just be taking it on a game-by-game basis, probably, looking for improvements, so we’ll just make sure it’s not against us that they’ll get that.”
Gartcairn had a free weekend as they were the odd team out in a 15-club league, but Mills says recent cup games against Conference A side Beith [6-0 Junior Cup win] and Premier League Glenafton [1-0 defeat in WOS League Cup] have given the players a major confidence boost.
Mills says they must take that form into the league and see where it can take them.
He said: “it’s a good sign, because you’re playing against good-quality opposition.
“We can take so much from that, because we can compete at that level, but the hardest part now is maintaining those standards when you’re playing in the league, because you wont get to that level unless you win the title.
“We have to make sure we don’t drop at the weekend.
“We’ve been looking at our fixtures and out of the next five or six games, most of them are on astro, while the weather is turning, so we should be playing every week.
“This is not a time to take our foot off the gas, and think‘ it’s a horrible night, we might not have a game on Saturday’ – all our fixtures look as if they’ll be on for the next five or six games in a row.
“Looking at the league table, there will still be three or four teams who will think if they put together a long sequence of win, they’ll be the team that comes out on top in the end, so it’s interesting every week to see who’s playing who and how the results are going.”