Dougie MacDuff insists Irvine Vics can’t afford to rest on their laurels ahead of facing Lugar Boswell Thistle this weekend.
Current form and the league table suggests the Westenders will be strongly fancied to take all three points in Saturday’s West of Scotland League Third Division clash at Victoria Park.
Vics sit pretty in fourth place with five wins from six games while Lugar are toiling in the bottom five with just one victory to their name so far.
But boss MacDuff reckons the 11-point gap between the teams isn’t a cast-iron reflection of quality - especially at this early stage of the season.
And he insists his players will have to maintain the standards they’ve set in recent weeks if they want to build on their five-game winning streak.
He said: “You don’t get easy games in this league. Outside the top five or six sides, performances from other teams have been inconsistent.
“I said at the start of the season that everyone is capable of taking points off each other and I stand by that.
“Lugar will be well organised. They took a bit of a doing losing five goals against Finnart in their last game but they’ve had a week to sort themselves out.
“It doesn’t matter too much what their form is because it only takes one result to kick-start a season.
“Our boys know that we must treat every team with total respect.”
Striker Kevin Adam is fit again after recovering from a niggling knock while utility man Chris Jackson is available again after a two-week break.
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