| Christie and McKie out for Brora / New look Keith |
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There is a dress rehearsal for a Highland League Cup tie next month at Dudgeon Park this weekend as Brora Rangers prepare to welcome Keith on league duty. Both clubs sat idle on Wednesday night due to weather-enforced postponements as Brora's away game at Rothes and Keith's home match against Strathspey Thistle were both snowed off. The hosts are looking bounce back from a run of four consecutive defeats and manager Andy Macleod's belief that his side performs better against the bigger clubs gives him hope ahead of the fixture. He said: "It has been a difficult few games for us. Over three of our last three games, we have probably played three of the top teams and Keith will not be much easier than what has come before them. It is a good challenge for the boys and we always look forward to games against the bigger sides. "They are all buzzing ahead of the game and we just need to keep the confidence going because in my opinion, we are doing well. We are just losing by the odd goal or two apart from last week. It does become difficult to keep that belief there but that is what my job is and we are doing our best to do that. "We do lift ourselves when we play the bigger sides and the dressing is always buzzing when we play these teams. We know what they are all about and I think we have competed well with them. We just need a goal to get our confidence up and we will improve from there." Macleod will be without Arran Christie as he is out injured while Kevin McKie is unavailable. The Maroons were disappointed by their performance in defeat to Formartine United at home last weekend but can take heart from their positive performance in their last away game when they won at Forres Mechanics a fortnight ago. Ahead of this match, Keith manager Darren Still said: "We will focus on the cup tie when it comes around but right now, we just need to focus on getting the victory to get us back on the rails after last week's disappointment. We had a good chat about things at training on Monday and I am certainly looking for a reaction from the players individually and as a group to get us the victory that we desire. "We did a bit of work on things at training and it was really upbeat and had a really good tempt to it, as it has been since Stevie (King, assistant) and I took over. I am trying to encourage the players to take their quality and tempo into the games on a Saturday. That was one of the things we discussed at length after training on Monday and hopefully they can take that on board and we can move forward." Still adds recent signings Darren McAllister and Garry McNamee to his squad after they joined from Turriff United and Banks O'Dee respectively at the end of the week. However, Derek Nicol is suspended, Phil McCall is unavailable due to work commitments and Gary Nicol is on the injury list. Meanwhile, Gary Harris and Kevin Collins have been transferred to Turriff as part of the deal that took McAllister to Kynoch Park with Danny Tritton moving on to Banks O'Dee. |
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