Jags gaffer: Make most of home run
Aaron Connolly hopes a run of five home games at the Showpark can catapult East Kilbride Thistle as high up the West of Scotland Fourth Division as possible.
The Jags boss and his side have played six of their last seven games on the road and start a run of home games this weekend when Campbeltown Pupils come calling.
Visits from Newmains United on March 23, Thorn Athletic on April 6, Royal Albert on April 20 and Eglinton on May 4 then follow, before finishing up the campaign away to Rossvale on May 11.
Promotion is realistically out of Thistle’s reach with the club currently in seventh and 13 points off the top three, so Connolly wants to see them get as high as they can by mid-May.
He said: “We’ve got five games at home on the bounce now so we’ve just got to put a decent run of results together to finish as high up the table as possible.
“We can be pleased with where we have gotten to so far.
“We’ve had a challenging season with injuries and all sorts of issues that have been thrown at us, but I think we’ve coped with that very well and we now have an opportunity to go and pick up some more results.
“Hopefully we can attract some decent crowds back to the Showpark because it has been a while since we last played there, and we are all looking forward to it.”
The Jags were not in competitive action at the weekend but warmed up for the Campbeltown clash with a 2-2 friendly draw against Second Division side Wishaw.
Striker Mitchell Rooney bagged both goals in the clash after a spell out of action and Connolly was happy with the overall display from his side.
He said: “We are really pleased with the performance.
“We used the game to get minutes into the legs and made some tweaks to our defensive structure.
“We’ve looked vulnerable in that area all season so I was pleased with the work we managed to get in on that and a couple of boys have done themselves no harm, potentially giving us some decisions to make going into this weekend’s game.
“Mitchell had missed the last three games so he’s hit the ground running again with his two goals.
“He has been a big miss for us so it is good to see him scoring goals again.”
Kick-off at the Showpark on Saturday is 2pm.