Rothes refuse to give up on Highland League title chase but manager Ross Jack sees his team as outsiders after surprise defeat at Nairn County
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ROSS Jack believes Rothes are outsiders in the Highland League title race after a shock defeat at Nairn - but he won’t be giving up.
The Speysiders were stunned by a 3-2 loss at Station Park on Saturday.
Manager Jack admitted the result was a hammer blow to his team’s hopes of staying in the chasing pack.
“For us to do anything now in the league, we would need to go on a hell of a run and there would have to be some quirky results for us to get back up there,” Jack said.
“But we will keep plugging away, nobody is chucking the towel in that’s for sure. We need to make sure we react properly, get a few victories and start the climb again.
“That was a massive blow and we were all gutted by the performance. We can be much better so we can’t afford to let that happen again.”
In their first match in four weeks, Rothes got off to the worst possible start when they conceded a first minute goal to trail at the break.
The visitors struck twice after the break through Ryan McRitchie and Gary Kerr to go in front. However, Nairn subs Dylan Mackenzie and Conor Gethins were both on target in the final quarter of the game to steal victory.
“It could have transpired that we broke through in the first few seconds but we gave a sloppy pass away and they capitalised.
“We didn’t play well at all but we got ourselves back in the game just after half time with two early goals, and we hit the bar with a chance.
“Their keeper made a couple of good saves and a third goal might have killed them but they made a couple of substitutions and they caught us out. Both goals were very fortunate, especially the third one as I don’t know how many deflections it took. But we didn’t deal with the initial through ball.
“There’s different ways of winning a football match but we tried to play and they caught us out with the directness of their play.”
Next up for Rothes on Monday afternoon is the visit of high-flying Brechin City, who are on a winning run in their effort to return to the SPFL at the first time of asking.
“We know it’s another huge game but it can’t come soon enough to get Saturday’s game against Nairn out of our system and see if we can get back on our run,” Jack added.
