The Warriors took on Cowdenbeath in a closed door pre season friendly at Ochilview yesterday afternoon. It was an entertaining match with Matty Yates, Adam Brown and Ross Taylor all getting on the scoresheet.
Gary Naysmith gave an update to the official website at full time:
“The lads have worked hard since they came back and you’re always a bit worried with the third game in a week especially when you have a few missing. Gregor and Nicky are on holiday, and Ky (Jacobs) has a bit of an issue with his hamstring. Euan O’Reilly got a kick in his foot that we didn’t want to take any risk with, so we had four missing. When you are running with such few numbers I was worried about the game time of others, whether they have played too many minutes for this early in the season.
It looks like we have got through the game without any injuries and that was one factor we were trying to manage. We said to the lads to try and play with a bit of freedom today, I felt we needed to try and score some goals and we certainly did that with a couple in the first half! I think Darren did have to make a couple of good saves, especially the one from the freekick. I thought it was probably quite a level first half, but in the second half we stepped up a gear, albeit Cowdenbeath had taken one or two of their stronger players off. We stepped it up and scored another few goals and we should really have had another three or four with the chances we created. The lads did what I asked and scored some decent goals, its finished off a decent preseason. If you look at it we are undefeated with a couple of clean sheets and four goals today, hopefully that gives the team a bit of confidence moving forward into the cup games.
You want your forward players to score because they live on goals. For me whoever scores is great! Matty (Yates) has a couple and an assist and Adam Brown scored a great goal. We are really trying to get Adam back up to speed, he is naturally fit guy, though he’s missed a couple of weeks of training he will catch up on his fitness, no problem at all.
We got some good goals and I thought we looked quite solid, especially in the second half. Dean Aitken came on and played, he is only seventeen, but he is a big boy for seventeen. Kieran Moore, although he naturally plays on the right came in and took up some good positions on the left. I have got to have chats with those lads in the next few days because you are only play signed players in the league cup. I think a lot of part time clubs wish that you could play trialists in that competition. It would help us out squad wise and would also help the trialists out with getting a bit more game time to try and impress. It is very difficult to try and decide on someone’s future based on two or three games, where they are possibly only playing forty five minutes here and thirty minutes there. I’m going to have a talk with the back room staff about the three lads who have come in and helped us out. We are still actively speaking to clubs to try and get a few more players in. Hopefully by the time the league cup comes around we will have one or two players added to the squad and hopefully have Euan and Ky back. If Ky is not back for the Buckie Thistle game, we hope he is back for Dundee United.
Competitive action returns this Saturday as Buckie Thistle visit Ochilview in the Premier Sports Cup. Tickets are available to purchase on Fanbase with full ticket details for all our Premier Sports Cup matches available here.
