Interim Elgin City boss Ross Draper has urged his players to put their 3-1 defeat at Stranraer behind them and focus on the fact their League Two future remains in their own hands.
The gap at the bottom of the division is down to a point following City’s defeat and wins for rivals Bonnyrigg Rose and Albion Rovers.
The Black and Whites have dropped to second bottom following a tough afternoon at Stair Park but Draper, who is charge on a caretaker basis along with coaches Charlie Charlesworth and Stevie Dunn, has already turned his focus to Saturday’s final home game against Dumbarton.
He said: “We had two good positive results against Stenhousemuir and Forfar to come off the bottom of the league.
“It’s credit to the boys we’ve put it in our hands.
“We can’t do anything about results elsewhere, we have to concentrate on ourselves and the fact of the matter is if we win our two games we stay in the league.
“It starts again on Saturday against Dumbarton.
“They’ve done well this year but we’ve been down there recently and won so we’ll be confident we can get another win and push ourselves on to the last day of the season.”
City pay the price after getting back into the game
Elgin’s hopes of picking up more points were scuppered by a strong Stranraer display in new manager Scott Agnew’s first game in charge.
Dylan Forrest put the Blues ahead but Aaron Reid’s third goal in as many games levelled the game early in the second half.
But the home side needed just four minutes to regain the lead as Matty Grant converted Josh Walker’s cross before Walker headed home the third to secure victory.
Draper was disappointed to see his side fight hard to get back into the game only to concede twice.
He said: “We weren’t great for 45 minutes. We said at half-time we had been given a football lesson but had managed to stay in the game.
“We changed it and looked much more comfortable for 20 minutes, getting ourselves back into the game, but the goals we conceded weren’t great.
“It’s frustrating because we had got back in the game after a one-sided first half.
“The game got away from us after getting back into it. We have to dust ourselves down and go again.”
City play their final home game against Dumbarton on Saturday while rivals Albion Rovers travel to East Fife and Bonnyrigg Rose make the trip to Annan Athletic.
Elgin travel to Bonnyrigg on the final day of the season while Rovers host newly crowned champions Stirling Albion.
Conversation