Naismith pleased with growing confidence

The Wee Jambos raced into a 2-0 lead at the break thanks to a brace from Makenzie Kirk and Callum Sandilands followed suit in the second half with a brace of his own in a scoreline that thoroughly reflected the men in maroon’s dominance.
 
“We’ve continued on from the two previous games which was important,” said Naismith.
 
“I feel as a group we have learned and in the last three performances you can see we are progressing. We have won them all, but they have been different kind of wins. Against Gretna we had to really defend our lead, but the other games we have played some very good attacking football.
 
“We have come up against a couple of teams who sit in which can be difficult, but we’ve had the solutions in terms of players positioning and timing of runs, but we’ve been clinical in the final third. That is all very pleasing.
 
“This isn’t just a big step up for everybody, it’s some of the boys’ first year in full time football and it’s the first year out of academy football for others, so you’re dealing with lots of scenarios with a lot of very young players.”
 
Today’s victory made it three wins out of three in November and the manager admitted that it was a run of fixtures that was identified as an opportunity.
 
“It definitely was something we looked at,” he explained. “It was a run of fixtures where we felt we were playing against sides at the bottom end of the table in games you want to be putting on a show.
 
“I think for most of the season there hasn’t been many games where I have not been happy with the effort or the work rate.
 
“In the first quarter of the season we lost a lot of games on individual errors. So, when we came into this run of fixtures we were hoping the players had progressed, which they have, and we made the right choices in games which allows us to get the points.
 
“Out of possession, no matter who you play, you need to be hard to beat as a group. Whether that is hunting in a pack to get the ball back quickly or the first person to get to the ball is delaying them so we can get players back in our own half to defend as a team.
 
“We did that really well and didn’t give up many chances and in the past we have gave up cheap chances with the wrong pass, but we’ve cut all that out and been clinical to get our goals in the last three games.
 
“Some of the younger ones are now staking more of a claim to play too which gives us more competition and that means we’re now leaving boys out that maybe deserved to play.”
 
The men in maroon are in action again next Saturday as they face Tranent Juniors, and Naismith admitted that the confidence is now flowing throughout the team.
 
“We’re wanting the games to come thick and fast now because we feel confident going into every game. When we played Tranent here, wrong decisions and set plays where the things that cost us, but there were good parts in that game too, so we need to make sure we’re still a threat going forward and solid enough defensively.”