It’s not often you hear a manager say they deliberately picked their toughest pre-season opponent for the game before their league campaign kicks off.
But that’s exactly what Neilston co-boss Chris Cameron revealed after the Farmer’s Boys suffered a narrow defeat against Premier Division side Blantyre Vics at the KG Stadium on Saturday.
Instead of looking for a comfortable and easy afternoon, Neilston specifically chose their most difficult match against the South Lanarkshire team ahead of their Conference C opener against Wishaw Juniors.
And despite suffering a 2-1 loss, Cameron believes the quality of their opposition in their final warm up game gives them a much better chance of hitting the ground running at the Brig O’Lea Stadium this weekend than any walkover would have.
He told Express Sport: “Blantyre are a very good footballing side, they’re very tidy on the ball and we knew going they was going to be a really tough test.
“They’ll do well in the Premier Division this season and we wanted to go into our league campaign right at the races.
“We deliberately picked it as the last game and even though we lost we were pleased with the end performance.
“They scored early on from a simple clearance from one of our attacks, and their second came from a quick break from our own corner. That’s something we’ll need to fix quickly.
“We made about eight changes at half-time, brought on our captain Steff Stirling and our regular centre back pairing and we were a totally different side in the second half.
“We got one back through Ross MacKinnon and probably should have gone on to level it up at 2-2.
“It was great to end the game on a positive and hopefully that has given us the jag we needed ahead of the league starting this week.”
While some teams are still scrambling for players, Cameron is content with the squad he has available.
He added: “We’d always look to add quality if it became available, but I’m really pleased with the 19 signed senior players we have and a good few from the Under-20’s too if needed.”
