Mick Dunlop admits Gartcairn have a score to settle with Rutherglen Glencairn, but go into their Hogmanay clash confident and on form.
The South Lanarkshire club ousted Gartcairn from the Scottish Junior Cup fourth round with a 2-1 win on December 3, following a 0-0 draw at the start of the West of Scotland League First Division season.
Dunlop says there’s not been a lot between the teams this season, but Gartcairn have home advantage for the December 31 meeting.
He said: “They’re a good side, they came down from the Premier Division last season and probably under normal circumstances they wouldn’t have, if there weren’t so many teams getting relegated – they weren’t in the bottom three.
“It will be a difficult game, so we’re under no illusions about that, but it’s a home game, our home form has been good so far this season, and with the way it has been with so many games off recently I think it’s important to get back to winning ways.
“It’s not that long ago since we played them in the cup, which was a really disappointing result.
“We didn’t really play well at all in the first half, and were 2-0 down through two really poor mistakes, giving the ball away cheaply right on the edge of our box.
“Their guy scored a really good goal, but from our perspective it was two cheap goals and we gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb.
“We got back into it in the second half, got the goal, created a few other chances but just couldn’t taken them, which was disappointing.
“That’s done with, we can’t do much about it, but it’s important that we managed to get back to winning ways against Bonnyton. We want to go on a run, and to do that we’ll hopefully get a victory on Saturday.”
Dunlop has been delighted with Gartcairn’s form this season and though disappointed to exit the Scottish Junior Cup, they’re still in the South Challenge and West of Scotland Cups, while doing well in their league.
“I think we’re 14 wins out of 19, so you can’t complain about that,” he said. “We’re still in the other two cup competitions and sitting second in the league, a point off the top.
“It has been an excellent first half of the season for us, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
“We’ve only played 11 league matches, but we’re really looking forward to the second half of the season, trying to maintain the form from the first half, and see where that takes us.”
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