Gala Fairydean Rovers: Current captain Danny Galbraith says club are missing injured predecessor Gareth Rodger

Rodger has missed competitive action in recent months due to an ongoing groin problem which was picked up late last season and again reared its ugly head in pre-season.

"Really Gareth should be the club skipper,” Galbraith told the Southern Reporter. "But obviously he’s missed quite a significant period with injury.

"Having captained the club previously it’s nothing new for me but I think I’ll probably be happy to pass it back to Gareth once he gets himself back in the team.

"I think Gareth will be out for another few weeks at least. With the troubles he’s had the last thing you want to do is rush him back now.

"Gareth is an important player and we need to get him right. Fingers crossed in the next couple of weeks he can get back into the team because we need all our better players available.

"He missed the tail end of last season and the start of this season. He played a little bit in pre-season but had a bit of a setback so I think that’s why it's important to be cautious with him.

"We have Gareth and a few others to come back – we must be missing four or five – and clearly when we have everybody available we look a lot stronger. The quicker we can get these boys back the better.”

Rovers resume their Scottish Lowland Football League campaign at home to third-placed East Kilbride this Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm.

“I think East Kilbride were certainly the favourites for the league before a ball was kicked," Galbraith said.

"Going by their start I can’t see there being much change in that because clearly they have started really well by only dropping a couple of points in a draw.

"So we are under no illusions that the games are coming thick and fast and on paper we are having a difficult run with the two B teams and East Kilbride.

"We know it’s going to be a tough game on Saturday, absolutely, but we need to show we can learn from last week (a 5-0 loss at Celtic B) because the things that we’ll be required to do this week are probably pretty similar to then so we will have to perform better than we did.”