‘Massive’ meeting for both at Scone
SCONE THISTLE V COUPAR ANGUS Farquharson Park, Saturday, 1.30pm East Region Premiership North
Coupar Angus manager Lindsay Cruickshank says this weekend’s clash with Scone Thistle is“massive”.
The teams occupy the bottom two positions in the Premiership North and are still on the hunt for their first point of the season.
Ahead of the Perthshire derby at Farquharson Park, Cruickshank said:“The Scone game is a massive one for us.
“It has got to be three points. I’ve heard they are a lot younger this year and that is along the same lines of us.
“If you look at the table, a win on Saturday and others above us losing, you jump about six places.
“The league is almost split into two this year. There are a lot of top teams.
“We want to get as high up in the bottom half of that table as we can.
“We know it’s going to be a long process. We’re still building the squad.”
Coupar’s game with Carnoustie was called off last week but plenty of positives were taken from a recent friendly with Kinnoull.
While his players have been on the receiving end of a couple of heavy defeats so far this season, Cruickshank praised their attitude.
“I said to the boys, with how we played in the Kinnoull friendly, it is not far away from clicking,”Cruickshank added.
“When it does, we will gain a little bit of momentum to push us on. We need one or two results to turn our way.
“We’ve got to take positives from certain games. Don’t think:‘We’ve been hammered’. There are games where we’re showing a bit of progress.
“We just seem to go through silly spells in games and we’re working on trying to get rid of that.”
Scone head into the game having lost 3-0 at Kirriemuir Thistle last week.
Jags defender Willie Laing is one of the few remaining experienced members of their squad from previous seasons.
He said:“This year has seen a massive change to the team, with boys moving on and some retiring.
“We have and are building for the next few seasons. As such, we have a youthful team this year.”
Blairgowrie were without a league game last Saturday but the Davie Park squad played a bounce match between themselves to retain sharpness.
Blair are set to take on Brechin Vics this weekend.