Jamie Michie says it was important Inverurie Locos didn’t play the blame game after a disappointing start to the season.
The Railwaymen – who face Formartine United in the Breedon Highland League at Harlaw Park tonight – lost heavily in their first two games to Turriff United and Fraserburgh.
But, on Saturday, the Garioch side triumphed against Huntly in the preliminary round of the GPH Builders Merchants Highland League Cup.
Ahead of facing Formartine, Michie reckons it was crucial they didn’t lose belief.
The 31-year-old midfielder said: “You’ve got to believe in the squad, and looking at our squad, it’s good.
“It was maybe just a bit of fine-tuning and going back to basics.
“When you have bad results, you can start trying to pick too much at what’s going wrong.
“Really, I think if you don’t work hard and win your battles then any team can turn you over, if you don’t do those basics right.
“I felt we weren’t doing the basics well enough.
We return to Breedon Highland League action in midweek when we welcome Formartine United to Harlaw Park.
📆 Wednesday 16th August
🏆 Breedon Highland League
🆚 Formartine United Football Club
🏟 Harlaw Park
⏰ 8pm Kick Off
🎟️ £10/£5 pic.twitter.com/HgjmJ5c7Fg— InverurieLocoWorksFC (@InverurieLocos) August 13, 2023
“We weren’t working hard enough off the ball. When we lost it we weren’t reacting quick enough to get it back and we weren’t defensively sound.
“But we’ve got the players to do that, so it was a case of getting everyone together and resetting and going again.
“We went back to basics against Huntly, made sure we were defensively sound and when we had opportunities further forward, we tried to take them.
“There certainly wasn’t a blame game going on – we did need to have words as a team to get back to working as a collective unit.
“We’ve got a got a good group and getting a result has helped us, and hopefully we can take that forward.”
Hard work required
Meanwhile, Formartine boss Stuart Anderson is hoping to lead his side to a first victory at Harlaw Park since August 2018.
The Pitmedden side are missing Kieran Adams, Adam Emslie and Dylan Lobban, but Lewis Wilson returns.
Anderson added: “We’re happy with the players at our disposal.
“Inverurie are a very good team. If you go through the squad and look at the players in it, there are a lot of great players.
“We expect a really difficult game and we’ve found Harlaw Park a hard venue in the past – and haven’t won there for five years.
“We know what to expect, we need to work hard and see where that takes us.”
