Clachnacuddin in hunt for more experience after bad start to Highland League campaign
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JORDAN MacDonald is seeking experienced additions to help his promising young Clach squad improve.
The Lilywhites manager was far from downbeat after a 5–0 defeat away to Inverurie Locos in Saturday’s Highland League opener.
It proved a competitive 90 minutes despite the ultimate margin of defeat and MacDonald felt the scoreline flattered the hosts.
Currently working to change the dressing room ethos and culture, MacDonald is determined to embrace a positive, attacking style of play and believes he has the personnel to implement it.
But the Lily boss stressed: “The average age of my squad on Saturday was 22. We’re not naive, and we’re still looking to bring in one or two in who would give us that wee bit of experience to help them.
“I was delighted for the young players, including four making their debuts – Stephen Kelly, Michael McRobert, Callum Black and Daniel Rae.
“There’s plenty of promise for us going forward. We’re not disheartened.
“I spoke to the players after the game and said it was down to basic mistakes. We’ve got to learn to cut them out and the place we do that is on the park.
“Do we need to get better? Yes. Do we need to learn quickly? Yes, we do.
“But Inverurie are a top four or five team for a reason. They’re established. We’ve come in and we know how we want to do things and we’re going to stick to it.
“Inverurie, themselves, will tell you they got to a crossroads a few years back and re-thought how they wanted to do it.
“They are where they are and we aim to get there. It’s going to take time.”
Clach play their first competitive home match since January this weekend, with Huntly’s visit.
The Christie Park side drew with Strathspey Thistle in their opener and are certainly beatable at Grant Street.
MacDonald will adopt the same positive approach he did at Harlaw Park, but stressed the club was balancing long and short-term objectives.
He added: “This is the start of a new project at Clach in terms of the way we’re trying to do things – and we’ve had plenty of backing from the board in that. There will be bumps along the way, but we’ll look to take the game to Huntly and win. That’s how we’ll approach every week.”
