Souters' chance to ease ahead of chasing pack

The Souters are due to face Cumbernauld Colts at Yarrow Park, conditions permitting, and there’s a strong incentive to keep the Broadwood men at bay.

Selkirk are level on points with the new town side, although a heavily superior goal difference is keeping them in fifth spot.

The Souters have already achieved their highest ever points total in the Lowland League, and it’s possible they might yet finish the season in their best ever position in the table, but they are concentrating on trying to win as many of their remaining games as possible.

They know Cumbernauld will be in a dangerous mood after their 4-0 defeat last weekend at Whitehill Welfare, while Selkirk had another idle Saturday after their home game with Edinburgh University was called off.

“We want to push home until the end the season,” said assistant boss Dave Bingham. “It’s a massive game – we are in a good position and Cumbernauld obviously had a setback last week.”

Their tails will be somewhat between their legs and they will want to bounce back against us.”

Bingham missed a narrow 1-0 defeat for Selkirk by Colts at the start of the season but said many games had been played since then.

“We have games in hand – you have to win them. It would maybe give us the advantage of getting our noses in front of Cumbernauld in the home stretch towards the end of the season,” he said.

“We are more than capable of winning a few of the games we have left, although we’ll need everybody fit, which we don’t have at the moment, so maybe the break has done us a favour in that respect.”

However, with 10 points between Selkirk and their nearest rivals, Bingham felt rising to fourth, or above, and getting in among the top teams, would be a big ask. “At the end of the day, it’s 11 against 11,” he said. “If you get a bit of luck on the day and your players play to the absolute maximum, there’s nothing to stop you getting a good result.

But the teams above us are probably the ones with the biggest budgets and the strongest squads – they they should be occupying these positions with what they have available to them.”

The Souters are a little exposed at the back – Reece Donaldson will be missing through suspension while Andrew Fleming remains out with a broken arm, although it’s hoped he may return to training next week, depending on medical advice.

Hoping the weather conditions would be favourable, Bingham said: “We need a game – we’d like to get Reece’s ban out of the way before a difficult trip to East Stirlingshire, and we’ll probably be a bit ring rusty.

“Cumbernauld will be coming out with all guns blazing – but playing on astroturf and coming on to a heavy park might not suit them.

“We will need to play well but the players have been a credit to the club and themselves in almost every game they have played, so I don’t see any difference. If we play the way we can, we have the players that can hurt anyone in this league – it’s just a question of doing it on the day.”