Stoneywood-Dyce player-coach Jan Stander insists his club should be delighted with its start to the Eastern Premier League season.
RH Corstorphine ran out comfortable winners after Stoneywood-Dyce were all out for 109 last weekend but Stander believes his players should be proud of their efforts so far in the top flight.
He said: “If you had offered us top four after the first seven weeks of the season and asked us were we happy with that the answer would have been yes.
“It has been a good start to the season. We’ve spread the performances out between different people in the team which is encouraging.
“Last week was disappointing but we have to accept it was a bad game and move on.
“Royal High Corstorphine are a good team and they have recruited well.
“They have good academy players who have come through the ranks and they are a formidable side.”
Stoneywood-Dyce will be aiming to bounce back from their second league loss of the season when Heriot’s visit People’s Park tomorrow.
Garreth Wolmarans and vice-captain Lennard Bester return for the home side and Stander is expecting another huge challenge against their Edinburgh opponents.
He said: “This weekend is another difficult game against a Heriot’s side which has been one of the top teams in the Scotland for the past couple of years.
“They have key Scotland players in their ranks. Matthew Cross always relishes coming back to play in Aberdeen while Adrian Neill knows the conditions up here well too so we know it will be a tough game.
“But we’ve said all along home games are key. If you win 75% of your home games and pick up some scalps on the road then you can finish in the top half of the table.”
Aberdeenshire bid to get NE Championship title bid back on track
Meanwhile, it’s also a big weekend in the North-East Championship as Aberdeenshire try to reignite their title challenge by defeating leaders Meigle at Mannofield.
Shire suffered their first loss of campaign last weekend against Forfarshire 2nds.
With the standings decided on percentage of points won from the total number of points available captain Kenny Reid admits Aberdeenshire can ill afford another defeat.
He said: “We want to take it game by game and every game is important. But in the context of the season Meigle are still unbeaten and if we were to fall two defeats behind them it would make it tough for the rest of the season.
“And we don’t play them again so we’d be looking for two other teams to beat them.
“We need to concentrate on our own performance but when you look at the wider context if we were to drop two defeats behind Meigle it makes it difficult.
“But the players are positive and ready to put on a good performance.
“Just because we had one bad day last weekend it doesn’t mean we’re a bad side.”
Elsewhere, fifth-placed Huntly welcome Forfarshire 2nds to Castle Park, Gordonians (sixth) host Freuchie at Countesswells and Stoneywood-Dyce 2nds travel to Perth Doo’cot looking for their first win.
