Ross Draper insists he won’t be hanging up his boots this summer, as he aims to play as big a part as possible in Elgin City’s remaining games.
The midfielder-turned-defender has largely enjoyed his loan move from League 1 pace-setters Cove Rangers to League 2 side Elgin, after a knee injury slowed his initial progress in Moray.
Going into today’s home tussle with champions-elect Kelty Hearts, the 33-year-old, who won the Scottish Cup with Caley Thistle in 2015, is aiming to make his 14th appearance for the Black and Whites.
Initially switching to Elgin at the end of September, his loan deal was extended in the New Year, allowing him the chance to rack up a good number of games before the summer.
Cove’s artificial surface at the Balmoral Stadium was a factor in him wanting to move to a club which plays on grass, to aid his knee recovery.
Draper eyes full involvement at Elgin
Draper explained he’ll talk about his future with Cove when the campaign closes, but playing matches remains his priority going into term 2022/23.
He said: “I am nowhere near ready to hang up my boots or go into coaching. I still have plenty to give as a player.
“When it’s done, it’s done, so – when you get to my age – you want to keep playing.
My body feels fine and the loan move has helped in terms of my knee injury, so it’s worked out for me.
“I came to Elgin to get as many games as possible. It has largely been positive, although there have been set-backs like, when I first came, I got injured straight away and I have missed a couple of weeks recently with a back problem.
“Apart from that, I’ve enjoyed it. We have seven games left and I’d like to be involved in all of those, which bodes well for next season.
“By January, I hadn’t played enough games, so we came to the agreement to extend the loan move until the end of the season. Hopefully, come the summer, I will go back (to Cove) and discuss what happens.
“Right now, I don’t know what the future holds. I want to play as long as possible. Wherever it is, I don’t mind.”
Elgin should be in play-off running
A recent 3-1 win over Stirling Albion and 0-0 draw with third-placed Forfar Athletic was followed by last weekend’s 2-1 loss at Annan Athletic, who are second, but 14 points away from champions-in-waiting Kelty.
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Draper, who has also played for Ross County, admits joining the promotion chase is a long shot as they are closer to bottom-placed Cowdenbeath, who are 10 points below them in the relegation play-off spot.
He thinks it has been a campaign of missed opportunities.
He added: “You never say never in terms of both ends of the table.
“We need points on the board, firstly to ensure we’re mathematically safe, but also we might start to climb towards the promotion play-offs if we get a few wins now.
“If I’m honest, that’s unlikely. We’ve only got ourselves to blame, because we haven’t been good enough over large periods of the season.
“Like Kelty have shown, you need consistency in this league. The top three of Kelty, Forfar and Annan have run away from the rest, then there is one place up for grabs for anyone else.
“We should have been in and around the mix there, but we’ve not been consistent enough.
“We want to finish the season well. You want to start strong runs now to take the momentum into next season.”
Top team Kelty set the high standards
Kelty lost 2-0 at Elgin in January and responded with a 4-0 victory on their own turf 10 days later.
Draper knows the Fifers set the standard in this division, but insists Elgin at home will be confident.
He said: “Kelty are winning the league easily. They’re a really strong side and have shown consistently how good they are. They have good players and recruited very well. It’s a task for everyone else to try and get to that level.
“We competed against them in January and got a good result. I actually thought in our last game against them down there, we were unlucky with decisions going against us, although they ran out comfortable winners.
“We were well set up and, had some decisions gone our way, you never know. We’ll take positives from how we’ve performed against Kelty.
“We’re at home and we want to replicate what we did against them here last time. Hopefully we can get another positive result.”