Peebles Rovers way off mark of late, says boss Rossi

That losing run kicked off with a 5-0 battering at home to Fife’s Thornton Hibs at the end of March and continued on Saturday with a 4-0 loss away to the same opposition, sandwiching a 2-0 midweek defeat at Hawick Royal Albert last week.

Hibs’ scorers were Jamie McNeish on seven minutes and 59, Garry Thomson on 51 and Joe Kinninmonth on 70.

Rovers remain in the division’s top ten despite that run of results, sitting ninth with 29 points from 25 fixtures, but they need to up their game and fast, according to Rossi.

“We passed up chance after chance in what I felt was a dominant first-half display. You can’t keep doing that, though,” he told the club’s website afterwards.

“We need to find that ruthless streak again at both ends of the park.

“In the second half, we made poor decisions and there was no coming back.

“There were certainly no tools downed as the boys work so hard for each other, but it’s evident that, in key moments, we don’t take pressure off ourselves by sticking the ball in the net. That’s what’s tripping us up at the moment.

“Saturday’s game is a good opportunity to right a few wrongs from the past few days, but the boys have been warned that nothing in this league will be given to them.

“As pleasing as it is to find ourselves in the position we are, we’ve been way off the mark in the last two matches and that’s been unacceptable. That being said, there’s no loss of belief. Every team go through a sticky patch, and I trust that we have more than enough character in that dressing room to get us back on track.”

Next up for Peebles is a visit to their Whitestone Park home ground this coming Saturday from bottom-of-the-table Lochgelly Albert, with kick-off at 2.30pm.