Wishaw boss David Dunn says his side must develop a “nasty streak” to pick up points in the West of Scotland League Second Division this season
The Beltane Park side lost 2-1 to Renfrew on Saturday in their first home match of the campaign, with substitute Kevin-Barry Grant’s sumptuous second half chip over the goalkeeper not enough to salvage something from the game.
And Dunn, whose side drew their opener with St Anthony’s the previous week, insists his side need to be more streetwise in their approach, after missing the opportunity to ‘take one for the team’ in the build-up to Renfrew’s game-clinching goal.
He said: “It’s small margins in this league. We lose a penalty just before half-time and it’s one of these ones that isn’t given a couple of years ago, but by the letter of the law it has hit our boys’ hand when he is trying to block a cross.
“But we lose a really poor second goal from our point of view. We’ve got a free-kick 20 yards out and it’s a poor delivery in. They break and we don’t stop the game where we should.
“We weren’t cute enough to take a foul. We let them turn and they break on us, so we’ve lost a goal from our own free-kick, which we can’t afford to be doing. We need to be more ruthless in all aspects of the game.
“The boys need to learn to have a nasty streak about us.
“I’m not asking boys to smash into tackles and really hurt folk, but there’s a cuteness about some of the teams we play. They are streetwise. They stop the play, if they give a foul away they stand in front of the ball.
“It’s something we need to try and get into our game a bit more.”
Wishy haven’t had much luck with injuries, with striker Kieran Brannan pulling up in the warm-up last week.
And there was more injury misery on Saturday as goalkeeper Connor Blades had to be replaced after just eight minutes by Dean Wilson.
Dunn added: “I’m not using that as an excuse because we should still be good enough to deal with that.
“Apart from us missing Garry Duggan with an injury, we had a good squad to choose from and we had more than enough to win that game.”
Wishaw now head to Ardeer Thistle on Saturday looking to get that first win on the board and Dunn is confident it will arrive soon.
”We are definitely not hitting the panic button,” he stressed.
“We are not showing the form we were in pre-season yet. Ardeer is a big game for us, but I’ve got belief in this squad and we’ll go there believing we can get a result.”
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