Kirkwood tells his team to have faith
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WICK Academy manager Davie Kirkwood is taking on the role of preacher man ahead of this weekend’s rearranged fixture against Keith.
The Scorries boss’s sermon is all about confidence ahead of the 3pm kickoff tomorrow, which has been switched from a home game to an away match due to the wet weather and stormy forecast.
Academy will now travel to Keith to play the fixture that was originally postponed on September 10.
The Scottish Highland Football League action will be only the second game in a month for Wick but Kirkwood reckons all it takes to find the three points is faith.
"We will go out with the belief that we can win the game," said Kirkwood. "Not hoping to win, but with the belief that we will."
Kirkwood has been inspired by the footballing finesse he witnessed during last week’s match against Deveronvale.
Despite the 2-0 losing scoreline, he said the first hour on the Princess Royal Park was some of the best football he has seen his squad play since taking over the reins six months ago.
"For 60 minutes it was probably the best football that Wick have played all season," he said. "Our dominance of the game was frightening and it was just a few squandered chances that let us down, while Vale got theirs."
Looking ahead to tomorrow requires Kirkwood to think back to October last year when the Maroons put Academy out of the Scottish Cup.
"Obviously they’ve been up earlier in the season for the second round of the Scottish Cup when they beat us 1-0," he said.
"But I don’t think that was a fair reflection of that game. It easily could have been us going through."
However, there is a lesson in everything according to Kirkwood’s creed and he knows what is needed for tomorrow.
"I know they have a good striker up front in Cammy Keith," he said. "But we’ve got probably the three best young centre backs in the league with Alan Farquhar and Michael and Grant Steven. Anything can happen."
Farquhar remains a doubt, though, due to a knee injury, so it could well be down to the Steven brothers to stop the star striker in his path and turn the tables.
Kirkwood said he plans to make the most of the opportunity to do just that – as long as the heavens don’t open down at Kynoch Park.
"I’m just praying that the weather stays fine so we can get a game on," he said. "Hopefully we can get a good run and start climbing the league again."
Meanwhile, Keith manager Darren Still is on cloud nine with his team’s recent run, despite being caught up in recent postponements.
"Our last game was two weeks ago when we won 6-0 against Strathspey," he said. "So we’re coming into the game with decent confidence and on decent form.
"We’ve won our last four games on the bounce."
Still puts the recent form down to a relatively injury-free team, which is a big change from earlier this season when the side suffered blow after blow.
"We’ve got a pretty settled team at the moment," said the Maroons manager.
"That has helped us out as we had some major injury problems earlier on in the season."
Missing the game tomorrow will be defender Derek Nicol, midfielder Neil Robertson and forward Jonathan Smith.
The Keith manager expects nothing less than a tough time.
"If you look at the past couple of seasons every game has been extremely tight," he said.
"We’ve already been up for the Scottish Cup this season and we only won 1-0 – it was an extremely tight game.
"I don’t expect anything less on Saturday."
