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Nairn County manager Ronnie Sharp wants to make full use of home advantage in Highland League run in starting with Huntly


By Alasdair Fraser

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Ronnie Sharp is challenging Nairn County to redress poor home form in the closing matches of the season – starting with Huntly tomorrow night.

The Wee County have tasted victory at Station Park just twice in the league so far this season, saving some of their best performances of the campaign for away trips.

A relative dearth of goals has contributed to Sharp’s side gathering just 10 points from 13 home matches, contrasting with a very healthy 26 points from 16 away games, including eight victories.

Fraser Dingwall celebrates scoring Nairn's equaliser against Clach, although they would go on to lose 2–1. Picture: James Mackenzie
Fraser Dingwall celebrates scoring Nairn's equaliser against Clach, although they would go on to lose 2–1. Picture: James Mackenzie

A quirk of the fixture list has landed Nairn with four home games from their final five matches and Sharp is eager to capitalise on that sequence to challenge Wick Academy for an eighth place finish.

“We’ve picked up a couple of home wins latterly, against Rothes and Strathspey Thistle, but our record at Station Park isn’t good enough this season,” the manager admitted.

“We have four games from the last five to play at home and we need to turn it around. We need to see if we can improve and be more clinical in the final third, and see what we can get out of those matches.”

Nairn beat Huntly 3–1 at Christie Park in October, but Sharp expects a very different visiting side tomorrow evening as the Wee County try to recover from Saturday’s 2–1 derby defeat away to Clach.

“Huntly have changed a lot of players since then,” Sharp stressed.

“Like all the teams in the lower part of the table, they’ve had good spells and bad spells. Everybody seems to be pretty inconsistent, but we need to be better in the final third.”

That shortcoming was evident again on Saturday, in a derby game where Nairn had good spells of dominance in possession without seriously hurting their hosts.

“We didn’t do enough to create good openings and, when we did, we never took any,” Sharp stressed.

“The name of the game is scoring goals and we have to take our chances, especially when games are close.

“We made two mistakes defensively and it cost us two goals. We’re not as clinical as we should be and that’s what cost us against Clach on Saturday.

“We still have the chance to catch Wick in eighth place, with a game in hand on them, and see off Clach’s challenge below us. Clach are breathing down our necks now as well.

“We just need to produce better in the final third and stop making silly errors. We were guilty of that earlier in the season and it seems to have crept back in now.”

Tom MacLennan (groin) is a doubt, but Adam Porritt is available again.


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