It’s back to league action this week, and back to the Highlands as we make the long trip north to take on Elgin City.

The sides have already met twice this season, with Elgin having the edge with one win and one draw. There’s been no lack of entertainment though, with ten goals served up in the previous two meetings.

With teams come into this off the back of Scottish Cup wins, and we caught up with Swifty to ask how the team’s preparations have been in anticipation of their return to league action.

“Its been good. Obviously we know exactly how they’re going to set up. They’ve got a really good striker and we want to set up accordingly to try and stop that. But also, we’ve got tools of our own that we believe we can use to hurt them. We’ve got plenty of pace in the team and we feel as if we can go and hurt them with our fire power. We just need to make sure that we’re tight and we’re organised and I feel that if we can do that, we’ll come away with the win.”

Kane Hester has caused the club issues all season, and it’s important that the defence have better control over the striker this time around.

“Absolutely, I think every team in the league will be the same in terms of looking out for Kane Hester but they’ve also got other good players and you can’t just concentrate on the one person otherwise they’ll punish you in other areas. So it’s important that we’re set up all over the pitch and we want to make sure that, that I said, we’re going to go and punish them as well going forward. It’s not just about nullifying their threats, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got our threats. I think all season, we’ve proven that we’re one of the top goalscorers in the league, so that’s never been a problem, we just need to make sure that we’re compact and tight.”

Stenhousemuir picked up their first win since the second round of the Scottish Cup, with three draws and a loss in the league in between. Saturday’s win was very welcome, but it’s now time to get our league run back on form.

“Aye, it was great to get a win on Saturday and it gave a real boost to the boys. We have changed things slightly. When you do go on a bad run, I think every team is the same, you need to find solutions to the problems. We’ve brought in a bit more energy to the team, feel as if that’s given us a wee bit of a lift and, fingers crossed, we can go and replicate what we’ve been doing over the last couple of games into the Elgin game. But, it’s 13 games and we’ve lost 2 games, although there’s been far too many draws in there, we’re aware of that, but there’s been a lot of positives throughout this run and we just need to make sure that we get a big three points on Saturday.”

Nat and Nicky missed out on the Scottish Cup victory on Saturday, and they’ll also miss out this weekend.

“Nat will miss out the weekend and Nicky is still out long term. Other than that, we’ve got a full squad available. Hopefully we start to get a better look at the squad in terms of being able to pick from a bigger number, but those two will be out on Saturday.”

If you’re looking for omens, 3rd December has been a relatively lucky day for The Warriors’ results. Although we last played on 3rd December in 2019, which ended up a 2-2 with Saturday’s hosts! All in all, we’ve played on 3rd December 13 times with only two losses, the last coming in 1949 and nine wins!

MATCHDAY INFORMATION

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Kick-off: 3pm

Match Entry: Elgin have a pay at the gate policy with cash only accepted at the turnstiles. Tickets can be bought online using FanBase here.

• Stand Adult – £15 (Tickets will only be available via Fanbase)
• Ground Adult – £13
• Stand Concession – £10 (Tickets will ONLY be available via Fanbase)
• Ground Concession – £8

Getting There: Click here for details of how to get to Elgin by car or train. Contact Andy McPhate on Twitter for the Supporter’s Bus info [leaves Ochilview at 9.30am]

Referee: Gavin Duncan

Assistants: Calum Doyle & Steven Wilson

 

OPPOSITION INFORMATION

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Last 10 Matches 

Date	Venue	Competition	Opponent	Result	Score
26 Nov	Away	Scottish Cup R3	Hill of Beath Hawthorn	W	1-2
19 Nov	Away	League Two	Annan Athletic	W	1-3
12 Nov	Home	League Two	Dumbarton	L	0-4
5 Nov	Away	League Two	Bonnyrigg Rose	W	2-3
29 Oct	Away	League Two	East Fife	L	2-1
22 Oct	Home	Scottish Cup R2	Camelon Jrs	W	4-0
15 Oct	Home	League Two	Forfar Athletic	L	0-1
11 Oct	Home	League Two	Albion Rovers	W	1-0
8 Oct	Away	League Two	Stranraer	W	3-2
1 Oct	Home	League Two	Annan Athletic	W	5-1

 

Top Scorers

Rank	Name	Goals	Assists	Played	Goals per 90	Mins per Goal	Total Shots	Goal Conversion	Shot Accuracy
1	Kane Hester	13	2	19	0.71	126	43	30%	67%
2	Russell Dingwall	8	6	17	0.48	187	26	31%	69%
3	Darryl McHardy	3	1	17	0.21	437	20	15%	65%
3	Brian Cameron	3	0	17	0.19	478	9	33%	56%
5	Dylan Lawrence	1	1	15	0.13	698	6	17%	50%
5	Matthew Cooper	1	1	12	0.09	1002	3	33%	67%
5	Angus Mailer	1	0	18	0.08	1125	8	13%	38%
5	Jake Dolzanski	1	0	17	0.06	1402	3	33%	33%

The statistics shown for each player include any goals they may have scored in the following competitions in the current season: Scottish League Cup, Scottish League Two

 

FIXTURE INFORMATION

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Last 10 Meetings 

Date	Venue	Competition	Result	Score
17 Sep 22	Home	League Two	D	3-3
23 Aug 22	Away	Challenge Cup	L	1-3
9 Apr 22	Away	League Two	W	0-2
29 Jan 22	Home	League Two	W	2-1
18 Dec 21	Away	League Two	D	2-2
25 Sep 21	Home	League Two	L	1-2
13 Apr 21	Home	League Two	W	2-0
19 Dec 20	Away	League Two	L	0-2
18 Jan 20	Away	League Two	W	2-3
3 Dec 19	Home	League Two	D	2-2

 

ON THIS DAY – 3rd December

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Year	Opponent	Competition	Venue	Result	Score
2019	Elgin City	League Two	Home	D	2-2
2016	Forres Mechanics	Scottish Cup R3 Replay	Home	W	3-1
2011	East Fife	Division Two	Away	W	1-3
2005	Berwick Rangers	Division Three	Away	W	0-2
1994	Morton	Division Two	Home	D	0-0
1983	Dunfermline	Division Two	Home	W	2-1
1966	Brechin City	Division Two	Away	W	4-5
1960	Albion Rovers	Division Two	Home	W	3-0
1949	Morton	Division Two	Away	L	4-0
1938	Morton	Division Two	Home	W	2-0
1932	Raith Rovers	Division Two	Home	W	3-1
1927	Leith Athletic	Division Two	Away	W	1-2
1921	East Fife	Division Two	Away	L	4-0

 

LEAGUE INFORMATION

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Bonnyrigg Rose vs Dumbarton

East Fife vs Annan Athletic

Elgin City vs Stenhousemuir

Forfar Athletic vs Albion Rovers

Stranraer vs Stirling Albion