Shield win can revive Thistle

Gary Hake Buckie Thistle manager Gary Hake will name his strongest side possible for tonight’s Aberdeenshire Shield first round match against Aberdeen University in a bid to get his side back on the winning trail.

The Victoria Park side have lost six successive matches following last month’s 3- 2 defeat by Fraserburgh in the Aberdeenshire Cup final.

Hake’s side was beaten 1-0 by Huntly at the weekend and the Buckie manager knows his side cannot afford another morale-sapping defeat at the hands of the students.

He said: “This is a big game for us. We will play our strongest possible team to try to get us into the next round.

“Hopefully we can do that as we need to get back upandrunning. We are in a bit of a lull at the moment. We need a win to get us back playing with a bit of confidence.

“The best thing about football is there is always another game just around the corner and if we apply ourselves correctly then we should get the result we are looking for.”

Hake believes hard work will be the answer for his under-performing side and has faith in his players to deliver a welcome win this evening.

He added: “When the chips are down, the players just have to work that bit harder. If they do that then they will get the right result. We will hopefully have one or two players back available and we will probably make changes from Saturday’s team.”