‘Strong squad for home game can help steer us away from relegation danger’
They have been dragged into an uncomfortable relegation fight.
But Perthshire head coach Alan Clark is certain his players will steer away from the national league drop.
One team will exit the National League 3 this season and the Eagles currently sit second-from-bottom.
And this weekend a massive and defining battle is set to take place at the North Inch.
Shire welcome Greenock Wanderers, who are five points back in the standings, to Perth on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s not a situation we wanted to be in,”Clark admitted.
“We turned the year on 17 points and we are still sitting on 17 points.
“But it is still in our hands and that is the message I’ve been putting out to the boys. We’ve changed some of the processes in the last wee while and we’re talking about how we develop ourselves long-term, not just in these last three games.
“They are important but it’s how we change ourselves as a club. We’ve been in this situation a number of years now. It’s more uncomfortable than where we wanted it to be, but we’ll see ourselves out of it. I have no doubt.”
As also touched upon in previous years, maintaining a national league presence is important for the club.
But Clark knows survival should never just be the aim - he wants to be competing up the table.
“It’s really important to have a culture that the guys can buy into,”he added.“That’s the driver for us at the moment.
“We don’t just want to survive, we want to be proactive in the national leagues.
“That means we’re going to have to change two or three things around the club. The players are buying into it.
“It’s important the guys coming through from the Colts and youth system have something to get excited about.”
Clark should have a strong squad at his disposal for this weekend’s crunch fixture on home soil.
He said:“It’s looking like we have full availability this Saturday. We’ve got a cast of thousands to pick from.
“And from that perspective, we are actually having selection discussions at the moment.
“We weren’t having those last week, so it’s a big positive for us.”
Reflecting on last week’s 34-21 defeat down at Ardrossan, who leapfrogged Shire, Clark said:“It was their home game so they have managed to pull in almost all of their first 15. It was a tough day.
“But we could have come out of the game with much more.
“They scored a couple of tries just before half-time, one of which was a systems mistake from us.
“The second was a kick which bobbled up into their winger’s hands when we were attacking.
“That killed the game off for us. We turned at 31-7 down and we had an absolute mountain to climb.
“We just couldn’t get it over the line, so it was disappointing.”