'We'll have a go': St Andrews United boss Robbie Raeside's rallying call ahead of return to league conquerors Dunipace in cup this Saturday

Ahead of this latest contest at Westfield Park in Denny, United have injury doubts over Ryan Roche (swollen foot) and Ryan Dignan (back), while Lewis Payne and Owen Andrew are cup-tied so will definitely miss out. But Dundee loanee Lewis Lorimer is available again after recovering from a groin strain.

“I can’t pick a formation for the Dunipace match until I know who is available,” gaffer Raeside told the Herald and Citizen. “I might pick a young lad from the under-20s team to go and show what he can do.

"We are all looking forward to the game and having a go. The players know they let themselves down last time.

"I think you always learn but the last time we played Dunipace I think we were quite restricted although we had attacking players available. In hindsight, I might have made some substitutions earlier.”

Saints go into the Dunipace rematch having won their first game in four via a 4-2 home King Cup second round success over Edinburgh South last Saturday.

Leading 3-0 through goals by Ross Cunningham, Lewis Payne and Lewis Sawers as a new system with three men up front bore fruit, United then conceded twice before their visitors had two men red carded and Kyle Sneddon scored the clinching fourth goal.

“It was a very positive performance,” Raeside said. “Edinburgh South are a decent team, they’ve only lost two games all season. Although they’re in the league below they’re challenging for promotion.

"Ironically, they’ve got a far stronger side than Kennoway, who we had lost to on the Tuesday.

"Fair play to the players, they’ve been going through a tough spell and as much as I could criticise them recently I thought they were excellent on Saturday, every single one of them. The one to 11 who started and the ones who came on, they all made a difference in what was a difficult game.

"It wasn’t easy to get to 3-0 up, we played very well to get to that stage.

"But we created further chances at 3-0 and it should have been four or five. We should have been out of sight.

"At least we were creating the scoring chances. We probably created more than we had in the previous three games combined, so that was very pleasing.

"It’s down to the players. We did do a wee change of shape but ultimately formations are only a success if the players carry it out and they did it.”

Although United were generally excellent in an attacking sense, their defensive play when conceding twice was not good enough.

“I didn’t feel Edinburgh South played their way back into the game,” Raeside said. “They literally scored two goals from two corners in the space of five minutes.

"But the players reacted really positively to that. The substitutes who went on were great and it was a good day all round.

"Edinburgh South lost their heads a bit with the two red cards. Maybe they’re just used to winning this season and they did lose the plot a bit.

"After the fourth goal the game went away from them a bit.”

On the three defeats Saints had suffered before last weekend’s win, Raeside added: “If the worst spell we have in a season is three defeats in a row then that’s not bad. I’m sure Man City have lost more games in a row than that this season.

"Football’s all about never getting too high or too low and just believing in what you’re doing.”

The United gaffer gave special praise to a defender for his efforts in helping beat Edinburgh South.

He added: “On Saturday we had Ryan Roche playing despite the fact I don’t know how he managed to get his foot into his boot, it was that swollen from a knock he’d taken in the Kennoway game from a terrible challenge.

“He managed to play for an hour on Saturday and it just shows what a great attitude he’s got.”

Despite being on the receiving end of tough challenges last weekend, Reece Redpath and Lewis Sawers whould be fine to face Dunipace.