Jim McInally has urged his Peterhead players to rise to the occasion of facing a bumper crowd against Dunfermline today.
Peterhead are struggling near the foot of League One and face another full-time opponent at East End Park this afternoon.
Any positivity the Blue Toon had from picking up their first win of the league season against Kelty Hearts was promptly drained away by a 4-0 thumping by Elgin City a week ago.
McInally is aware of the opportunity the Peterhead players have in Fife this afternoon, with the chance to kick-start their season at one of the biggest grounds in the division.
“The players should enjoy playing on that pitch and in that stadium. It’s basically a free hit for them,” said McInally.
“Especially after last Saturday, they should see it as the perfect game to respond in.
“We need to put a shape in place and set out to frustrate them, not let them run over the top of us.
“These are the game where players should stand up and be counted, to go and play at Dunfermline in front of 4,000 people. This is where you grow up and hopefully there’s players saying: ‘this is where I want to be’.
“Ryan (Dow) knows a lot of their players and has been helpful when it comes to getting to know their strengths and weaknesses.”
This week was the first time this season the Peterhead players have all trained together for both sessions.
The club has traditionally drawn players from across Scotland and have often trained in separate groups, in the central belt and the north.
Peterhead trained as one big group on Tuesday and Thursday in Dundee and, while McInally would like to do it more often, it depends on the availability of facilities.
“It should make a difference as far as organisation goes, to prepare players for a Saturday,” said McInally. “Training facilities are hard to come by in Scotland at the best of times and it doesn’t need to be in Dundee.
“But it’s something that’s glaringly obvious, that we need to spend time on shaping the team up.
“We changed because we had guys like Si Ferry, Del (Lyle) and Gary Fraser with muscle problems, so we didn’t want them sat in a minibus when they didn’t need to be.
“But those guys are away now and the players we have are younger, so they’ll need to adapt to it.
“It will be massive because the players will know exactly what they’re up against and you hope it prepares them better.”
Peterhead will be without long-term injury victims Hamish Ritchie, Andy McCarthy and Russell McLean for today’s game. Robbie McGale (shoulder), Ola Adeyemo (Achilles) and Conor O’Keefe (calf) are also missing, while Chris Kisuka is suspended.
