Manager Jimmy Quigley insists Renfrew can’t afford to let their penalty problems cost them a promotion spot.
The New Western Park side were sent crashing out of the South Challenge Cup by nine-man Bo’ness Athletic, who raced into a 4-1 lead at half-time.
‘Frew managed to fight back to 4-3 but were left counting the cost of a missed David McKenna penalty, with Cieran Diver and Scott Morton also both guilty of missing from the spot in their previous match - a disappointing 2-2 league draw with lowly Dalry Thistle.
Diver did bag one from the spot against Bo’ness, with Quigley revealing after the match that the current rotating of penalty kick takers would stop as he fears it could become a mental block at a crucial period of the season.
He told Express Sport: “I’m not going to be too critical of the boys who played against Bo’ness because we were probably the better team for about 70 minutes of the game.
“We made six changes to give some of the guys who haven’t been playing as much a bit of game time and they came in and did well.
“We just had a ten minute spell in the first half when we lost two poor goals and one from a penalty - which was never a penalty.
“It was all us in the second half and in the end it’s a missed penalty that’s cost us again. We just couldn’t get an equaliser to take it to extra-time.
“That’s three penalties we’ve missed in the last couple of games.
“The strikers rotate them and I know they all want to be top scorer at the end of the season. I’m never too critical of them because they’ve got something like 50 goals between them already this season.
“But they’ve all missed penalties now in some really important games and I’m going to put a stop to the rotating now.
“We can’t keep dropping points in the league and I don’t want it to become a distraction or a mental block going into the business end of the season.”
Renfrew currently sit in fifth in the Conference B table, just two points behind Thorniewood United who currently sit in the last promotion spot.
Quigley’s side have just five league games remaining, including clashes against title hopefuls Gartcairn and Cambuslang Rangers.
The Renfrew boss hopes his players can get the job done and pinch a promotion spot after fighting back into contention after an extremely slow start to the season.
Quigley said: “We’ve got a free weekend coming up because Greenock Juniors are playing in a cup competition.
“After that we’ve got Newmains and no disrespect to them but that’s a game we need to be winning.
“We need to keep the standards up against the ‘so-called’ smaller teams, because we’ve dropped points against a few of them already this season.
“In my eyes we’ve got five cup finals left to go.
“They are all big, big games and other teams around us will drop points.
“It’s all about who is going to be the most consistent in the run in and we’ve got to make sure that team is us.
“After a slow start to the season, at least we can affect what is going to happen.
“It’s pretty much in our hands whether we go up now or not.”
