Elgin City manager Gavin Price revealed his players have been firing in training as they get set for Saturday’s Scottish Cup second-round home clash against Camelon Juniors.
Last weekend’s 1-0 defeat against Forfar Athletic ended a terrific run of form, having gone six games unbeaten, and losing only one of their previous 12 matches.
Positive results and plenty of goals pushed Elgin up the division and, when they return to league duty a week on Saturday away to East Fife, they are in a healthy position.
Despite their defeat against the Loons, they are in fifth position, but just seven points away from front-runners Stirling Albion and Dumbarton.
🔜| Saturday sees us at Elgin City for our Scottish Cup second round fixture 🚍
🆚️ Elgin City
🏆 The Scottish Cup Second Round
🏟 Borough Briggs
📅 22/10/22
⏰️ 15:00 pmAll supporter information can be found below ⬇️https://t.co/DJGee3xfKI
MON THE MARINERS 🔴⚪️🔴 pic.twitter.com/YtdnI4Vu12
— Camelon Juniors FC (@Camelonjuniors) October 17, 2022
They are only one point behind East Fife and Stenhousemuir within the promotion places too.
The attention is now fully on ensuring they get back to winning ways against Camelon Juniors, a side considered dangerous by Price, despite sitting 14th in the East of Scotland First Division.
The Mighty Mariners earned their place in round two by winning 4-1 against Whitehill Welfare from their own league and beating Highland League hosts Strathspey Thistle 5-0.
This week has given Price and his squad the chance to take stock of their steady improvement over the past two months.
Homework on unlocking opponents
And the Black and Whites boss insists finding a way through well-organised opponents using various options within his team is what they’ve been looking at in the build-up to the Borough Briggs clash.
He said: “Over the past while, it’s been really good for us. We were obviously disappointed with the result on Saturday and we’ve put ourselves into a challenging position.
“We can’t quite relax, but we can enjoy a different competition and face a different opponent.
“Hopefully we can get a positive result on Saturday before two hard away games (against East Fife and Bonnyrigg Rose).
“We’ve been focusing this week on the things that have given us success so far this season, such as scoring so many goals and creating chances.
“We have to get back to that. Football can be over-complicated at times, but it’s a simple game. We’ve a few different ways of scoring goals and we’re not just relying on (15-goal) Kane Hester.
“There are goalscorers in several areas of the park and we have to focus on that. We’ve only scored one goal in our last two games (after beating Albion Rovers 1-0), so that’s why we’re looking at what helped us go on such a strong run lately.”
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