Howe of Fife hoping to do double versus new boys Allan Glen’s

The Cupar club only won that game against the league new boys in Bishopbriggs at the end of November by 20-15 and their president, Gordon Thomson, is expecting another tight affair this weekend.

Howe and Glen’s go into that fixture neck and neck in the table, the Fifers sitting fourth with 58 points from 16 fixtures and their visitors on 57 from 17.

“They’re a game behind us but there’s only a point separating us,” said Thomson.

“They’ve come up from the west regional league and they’ve obviously got an appetite to play at national level. They’re a national team, the way they set up and the way they play.

“We played them at their ground in November and they hadn’t lost for a season and a half at home at that point and we managed to take the result 20-15. It was a super tough game, so we’re under no illusion that it’ll be anything but the same here. I’d imagine it’ll be tight.”

Howe’s first challenge will be to ensure the show goes on, with sleet forecast tomorrow and temperatures expected to fall to -4C overnight on Friday, but they’re drawing up contingency plans to switch the fixture from Duffus Park to a 3G pitch in Dundee if their home ground is deemed unplayable.

They go into this weekend’s match, all being well, on the back of a four-game winning streak bookended by home-and-away victories against second-bottom Greenock Wanderers.

That succession of successes kicked off with a 109-3 thumping of the Inverclyde side at home at the beginning of February and was extended to four games by a 48-7 away win on Saturday, but that latter result was a closer-run thing than the scoreline suggests, according to Thomson.

“They fielded a different team at ours. They were blooding 18-year-olds coming up through the youth ranks that time and it ended up a wee bit like a training session,” he said.

“Fort Matilda is always a hard place to go regardless of results, and what was readily visible when they rocked up on the pitch on Saturday was that it wasn’t the same team that came to Duffus. They’d got their injured players back and had a full squad to choose from.”

Howe’s try-scorers at Octavia Terrace at the weekend were Duncan McIntyre, Will Howley, Fraser Allan, Brad O’Hanlon, Jamie Thomson, Rory Johnston, Cameron Patrick and Cammy Walker, with four of those touchdowns being converted.

Captain Martin Lavelle got the hosts’ only try, converted by Michael Frizzel.