Kirkcaldy & Dysart 3-2 Heriot Watt Uni: But K&D boss Grant Brough tips 'super fit' students for title push
After watching his team scrape past the 'super fit' students of Heriot-Watt University 3-2 at home last Saturday, Kirkcaldy & Dysart manager Grant Brough outlined just how difficult a test it was against a team who reportedly train four times a week, double the amount of most sides in the East of Scotland Football League pyramid.
Brough - whose team led 2-0 in this first division encounter via a Jordan Hunter shot and Jay Watson header - then saw K&D pulled back to 2-2 before they won it thanks to Ryan Westbrook's late header from a corner.
The Denfield gaffer - whose sixth-placed side are now only below fifth-placed Heriot-Watt on goal difference - joked to the Fife Free Press: "You don't want to be ending up winning 2-0, you want to make it complicated! It was the scenic route.
"The players showed great character after getting pegged back to 2-2, to then go and win it.
"It was a sweet victory.
"Heriot-Watt are the most organised team that we've played this season. It was a tough game.
"They had some really good players who were really fit.
"You can tell that they do a lot of training, practically training as a full-time club. I've been told that they train four days a week and you could see that. They'll be the fittest team in our league.
"They made it difficult and they'll be 100% challenging for the league this year.
"They were fit, sharp and really well organised but our boys were superb.
"It wasn't pretty. I'm not kidding on that people who watched it would have been thinking: 'What a great game of football Kirkcaldy played'.
"We stuck to our game plan, we came away with the win and that's what counts."
K&D are sitting on 20 points from 11 matches, just five points behind leaders Lochore Welfare and only two points off the promotion places.
But Brough isn't shouting from the rooftops about their prospects of going up as finishing in one of the top three positions come next May, as he concentrates on fulfilling that classic footballing mantra among managers of: ‘We’ll take every game as it comes’ over the next few weeks.
He said: "Lochore are the team to beat, the team that everybody's got their eye on and have got to catch."
This Saturday sees K&D visit Vale of Leithen in the King Cup first round in a 2.30pm kick-off.
The Borderers are currently 10th in the EoS second division conference SE, so Brough's men will start hot favourites.
He added: “If you look at it on paper you’re going: ‘They’re 10th in their league and we’re sixth in a league two levels higher so we should win’. But football doesn’t work that way.
"Listen, we've lost to lower league opposition already this season so we need to be switched on. It's going to be tough down there so we just have to do what we have to do.
"You never know in football but fingers crossed we’ll be okay.
"We are actually starting to get guys back from injury so it's going to be an opportunity to get players 90 minutes that have maybe been missing over the last wee bit.
"So that will be a chance to get them game time.”