Peterhead midfielder Jamie Stevenson insists his side should be proud of their strong response to missing out on automatic promotion from League 2 this season.
The Blue Toon missed out on the League 2 title by a point to Montrose on the final day of the campaign despite a six-game winning run but have extended their impressive run to eight matches following a 4-0 play-off semi-final aggregate win against Stirling Albion.
Stenhousemuir stand between Jim McInally’s side and a place in the final but Stevenson is determined not to let the second chance of going up slip from his grasp.
He said: “It would mean everything to go back up. That was the aim from the beginning of the season.
“We were disappointed not to win the league especially after taking 76 points but we knew what the situation was for the play-offs and that there was nothing to be gained from sulking.
“We’ve knuckled down, won the semi-final and now we’re two games away from promotion.
“The league title was out of our hands in the run-in. We’re in control of our destiny for the final.
“We’ve won eight games, kept six clean sheets and the boys are working as hard as they can. We’re all in this together.”
Stenny stand between the Blue Toon and League 1 football next season and have won three of the four meetings with Peterhead this term.
But Stevenson insists confidence is high in the Peterhead camp ahead of the double- header which begins to- night with the first leg at Ochilview.
He said: “We’re playing a final over two legs now and both teams will be going for it as there’s nothing to lose from this point.
“We know how dangerous Stenny can be but it’s the same for everybody, we will have played five games in 14 days by Saturday and as tired as the legs may be we believe we can do it.
“We had to dig deep on Saturday.
“The first 25 minutes against Stirling we had to weather the storm and we struggled to get the ball out of our own half due to the wind but once Mason Robertson scored an unbelievable header it set the tone for the rest of the game.
“Stirling’s front two have done well this season but we handled them well and now we have to do it again against Stenhousemuir.
“Our team hasn’t changed much in the last six weeks but even when we had to make changes like we did on Saturday it didn’t affect us and hopefully we can make one last push in these last two games against Stenhousemuir and end the season with promotion.”
