Mission accomplished I was pleased with our victory over Shotts at the weekend.

The build up to this game certainly wasn’t ideal as our preparation was interrupted with several of our players suffering from a flu bug and having to miss some of our training sessions.

Added to that, on Tuesday night our captain Austin McCann was handed a two game suspension after his appeal against a sending off in our game at Petershill in January was thrown out.

At one stage we were actually concerned that we might not have a full complement of players to fill the bench.

As usual we made it hard for ourselves as with the strong wind at our back during the first half, we were very wasteful in the final third of the park.

We never took any of the guilt edged chances we created and generally could have made life a lot more uncomfortable for the opposition defence.

Consequently, I think some people suspected this could come back to haunt us defending against the strong wind in the second half but the players proved those fears to be misguided. They turned in a fine second half performance by playing some good passing football in difficult conditions.

When you also consider that we have never won a game at Hannah Park, you maybe understand why I was not only chuffed at the victory but also the manner of it. The draw for the third round of this competition has yet to be made.

Ross returns We have brought young Ross Harvie back from a loan spell at Ayrshire club Dalry.

Since he joined us from amateur football, he has had a bit of a stop/start time as far as playing goes which was partly due to the team initially playing well and then Ross having to go into hospital in January to get his tonsils removed.

We are happy to have him back as not only should it bring a bit of freshness to the squad but he is a young guy who has good potential and is capable of making a significant impact during the remainder of this season. He came on as a substitute in the second half against Shotts on Saturday.

Talbot again This Saturday we get back to league business and the opposition couldn’t get any tougher than league leaders Auchinleck Talbot.

We performed well in both of our previous encounters against them this season but the bottom line is we came away with nothing to show from those games other than praise for how we had played.

They are a strong outfit but I genuinely believe we are capable of taking the points off them this Saturday and I would like to think our players think likewise.