Formartine United boss Paul Lawson has challenged his side to find more consistency in this shortened Highland League season.
While traditionally a strong cup team, Formartine have not matched their ambition of being title contenders in recent seasons.
Lawson has retained the bulk of the squad he had for the last campaign, adding former Cove striker Jonny Smith from Inverurie and promoting several youngsters to the first team. They also have title-winning experience in Dan Park and Darryn Kelly, with both claiming league medals with Cove.
They got off to the best possible start to this season, with a 5-1 win over Turriff, and Lawson hopes they can deliver results more consistently this season.
He said: “Over the last couple of years, consistency in the league has been our issue. Maybe playing each team once might help us, I don’t know.
“A number of teams will be thinking if they put a run together, confidence will be high and you never know where it can take you.
“I don’t think there’s much room for error. Certainly, the teams that finished above us last year like Brora and Fraserburgh, I can’t see them dropping too many points.
“The shorter season will give more teams a chance.”
Formartine’s second game of the season against Lossiemouth was postponed on December 5 and they return to league action on Saturday against one of the teams hoping to be in title contention, in Inverurie Locos.
Lawson added: “We know this season is going to be challenging, but we just have to adapt. I thought we played really well in the first league game and scored five good goals.
“We probably could have scored a few more.”