Greg Fleming wants more than just stability for Peterhead this season.
During his two years at Balmoor he has been used to fighting at the top end of divisions for meaningful prizes come the end of the season.
The Blue Toon missed out on promotion via the play-offs in 2018, ensuring a longer stay than was hoped for. However, a year on, they beat Queen’s Park at Hampden on the final day of the season to go up as champions.
They have been solid if unspectacular on their return to League 1, sitting in mid-table with eight points from five games. The one blemish on their record is a defeat to Dumbarton, in which they led 2-0 before losing 3-2.
Raith Rovers are the opponents this weekend, as Fleming targets a rewarding return to Scotland’s third tier.
He said: “There’s no point just trying to stay in the league. You’ve got to push on. We’ve seen in the last two seasons, the team that has gone up has got into the play-offs the following season.
“Hopefully we can do something similar. It’s going to be tough but there’s little point getting promoted just to try stay up.
“The Dumbarton game was a learning curve for us. It gave us a wee wake up, as we maybe thought it was game over. We can’t think like that. We’ve got to make ourselves difficult to beat.”
Peterhead renew hostilities with Raith having played them in the Betfred Cup in July. Ben Armour got the only goal for Jim McInally’s side as a 3-1 defeat eliminated them from the competition.
Fleming added: “They came out like a house on fire that day and came at us very quickly. I’d imagine they’d like another start like that. We’ve played four full-time teams and got three draws out of them, so we’ve done OK.”
