Frustration has underlined this season for Cove Rangers skipper Mitch Megginson.
While Cove have competed with all and sundry in the Championship, there is a belief they have not got the points return they should have.
Late goals have cost them key points – Hamilton, Morton and Partick Thistle are cases in point – and they have yet to win on the road this season.
Their last result, a 6-1 thumping at Inverness, brought about a change in management, with Jim McIntyre departing and Paul Hartley returning to the club.
It is a fresh start with an old face, but the frustrations of Cove’s campaign to date will need to be addressed.
“We’ve been there or thereabouts this season – the key phrase is ‘thereabouts’,” said Megginson. “We’ve beaten teams like Dundee and Queen’s Park this season, but we’ve gone away to Hamilton and been 4-1 up with 20 minutes to go and only came away with a point.
“Too often we’ve been in winning positions but come away with one point rather than three, and that’s where we need to improve. Then Monday’s performance at Inverness shows that we need to improve defensively.
“This team will get goals and be attacking under the gaffer, but we need the fine balance to stop shipping goals as well.”
‘Because we’re not used to it, it makes it harder’
Some of the points Cove have dropped have proved challenging mentally to come back from.
Games have appeared to have been going in their favour until late on, with the preferred outcome slipping away with little time to rectify it.
“The hardest one was leading Partick Thistle with 30 seconds to go deep into injury time and their keeper comes up and scores a great header,” said Megginson. “It is frustrating and you can see it within the squad, being so used to winning and not being able to get over the line.
“As players, because we’re not used to it, it makes it harder, but it’s the nature of this league. You have to get your head round it. You have to go two or three-nil up and kill the game off, rather than hanging on a 1-0.
“There’s a lot of positives from the first six months and we’re certainly good enough as a team to compete in this league.”
Cove will ‘adapt easily’ to returning Hartley’s demands
Hartley’s return ahead of today’s visit of Queen’s Park provides the Cove players with a familiar face, who has achieved success with the majority of them before.
He only left six months ago for an ill-fated switch to Hartlepool, but now finds himself back in the Cove dugout once more.
“It allows us to hit the ground running and we can adapt easily to the way he wants us to play, as we did it last season,” added Megginson.
“There is still a nucleus of the players who were here last season, so it’s not going to take us long to get back to it. It’s not going to take us long to adapt to the way he wants us to go about things.
“He puts the players first and does everything he can prior to a Saturday to get us ready for a game.
“It hasn’t been a long time at all – he had to make a decision at the end of last season and he decided to try something new, which you naturally do.
“But he’s back now at Cove and I’m sure he’ll be buzzing to get started.”
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