Aaron Connolly is thrilled with the way his East Kilbride Thistle side have taken their training into practice in pre-season, after the Jags earned another good friendly win at the weekend.
Building on last week’s 4-3 success at home to West of Scotland Second Division side Wishaw, Fourth Division Thistle defeated another Second Division side in St Anthony’s 3-1 at the Showpark on Saturday.
Ben Alston, Michael Blues and Roddy Paterson were all on target as Connolly’s men ran out comfortable winners.
And the Jags gaffer is delighted with how his new-look side have taken his instructions on board.
He said: “It was a positive performance from us again. I am really pleased with the first three weeks.
“Ultimately, results don’t matter at this time of the season and we are really focused on performance levels, implementing some of the things that we have been working on in training.
“I think we have seen signs of that during the two matches we’ve played so far, both against decent levels of opposition as well, so to come away with the performances we have is great and we’ve been deserving winners of both games.
“And that is thanks to the hard work the boys have put in during the first few weeks.
“I think we surrendered a bit more possession to St Anthony’s than I would have liked, but I thought, defensively, our structure was sound and I never felt under any real threat in the game.
“We scored a couple of good goals from nicking the ball in high areas, which is something we’ve worked on.
“Two of the goals come from that and the other one is just a good team goal, building our way up the pitch from the back to score.
“I’m really pleased with those aspects of our play.”
The Jags host First Division Shotts Bon Accord tonight and on Saturday they travel to Dundee-based Midlands League side Lochee Harp, as they build towards their league opener with Newmains on July 29.
Connolly added: “It’s another step up in terms of the teams we are facing.
“We were keen to get an away trip into our pre-season so the players can spend a bit of time together, so we are looking forward to that and, hopefully, another positive week for us.
“We will try to do our homework on Newmains as well over the next couple of weeks, try to get out and watch them a couple of times, so we can be as best prepared as we possibly can be.”
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