Kevin Rutkiewicz wants his East Kilbride side to bottle the early promise they showed in their Scottish Cup defeat to Hamilton Accies to boost their Lowland League title push.
The Kilby boss watched his side give Championship Accies a few scares early on in the tie and if they’d taken their chances, it might have made for an altogether different afternoon at New Douglas Park.
Striker Cami Elliott had a huge opportunity to round the Accies goalkeeper and score inside the first 60 seconds, before midfielder Neil McLaughlin had an effort narrowly turned around the post.
As it was, Accies stepped up a gear to deliver an emphatic 4-0 victory to book their place in the fourth round, thanks to an Andy Ryan hat-trick and a Ryan One strike.
But ahead of Saturday’s league visit to Gala Fairydean Rovers, Rutkiewicz hopes to see third placed Kilby take their display into the league campaign as they chase Rangers B and Stirling University.
He said: “The challenge now for the players is: if we can bottle the intensity from that first hour and approach every game in our league like that, we will win a lot of games of football.
“But it is finding that formula. That is something we will strive to do to get into them, to feel that emotion again.
“Whether it was [ex-Accies players] Kyle Munro and Ronan Hughes coming back to where they started their journey as a footballer or whatever it was, that can give you a pathway to find that level again.
“Hamilton’s objective at the moment is survival and ours is to get into the leagues so there are different agendas there but we both want to win games of football and be successful.
“I’m quite pragmatic in the fact we are not there.
“We are a point behind the team that can be promoted [Stirling Uni] and we have got to find a way to get above them.
“We want to take the initial side of our performance against Hamilton into league games to get the points on the board we need.”
Following Saturday’s match, East Kilbride then visit Rangers B on Tuesday night in a clash that could change the title race.
Rutkiewicz added: “Long before I came here, this club was desperate to get into the leagues and have an impact within it.
“That’s not changed and that bar is still very much there.”
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