Last Saturday’s narrow defeat to Cove Rangers highlighted the lack of strength in depth Academy are dealing with at the moment.
While we have a very strong first XI when everyone is fit and available, we are very limited with our options on the bench.
And with none of our forward players having a particularly good game in what was a very physical encounter (Cove very fortunate to end the game with all 11 players still on the pitch), we were left with few options to turn the game around.
The fact that, as the match approached its final moments, our last throw of the dice saw us replace our all time leading goalscorer Gary Weir with veteran left back Gary Manson says it all.
Despite the evenly-matched nature of the game, it’s hard to begrudge Cove their victory as they did create the better chances throughout the 90 minutes.
What was difficult to understand, though, was Connor Scully’s reaction to his winning goal when, instead of celebrating with his teammates he ran in front of the home supporters cupping his ears in their direction, deliberately antagonising them.
As far as I’m aware there has never been any bad blood between Wick and Cove and certainly in that game there was no abuse being directed toward any Cove player. Indeed, the home fans would have almost certainly been giving out more grief towards their own players rather than the opposition.
When Brora players react like that it’s more undertandable, given their lack of team spirit and the deserved verbal abuse they have to put up with. But quite why Scully decided to act like such a brat remains a mystery.
It all means that we have now lost to Turriff, Formartine and now Cove this season and we have to accept that we probably don’t have the quality to break into that top four this season.
All of those defeats have been by a single goal margin, though, and we can certainly consider ourselves the ‘best of the rest.’
This, though, is a year which is going to rest on our cup results and if we can get a win against Whitehill Welfare in the Scottish Cup first round this weekend then last Saturday’s reault will be easily forgotten.