Surreal Experience To Look Forward To

The Buddies can't wait to get back to action after a weekend off.  There may be a slight lack of reality as St Mirren will travel to Edinburgh's Saughton Enclosure to take on Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale in the Third Round of the William Hill Scottish Cup.    The 2016-17 East of Scotland League Champions have had a terrific start to their season - beating League Two side Stirling Albion 5-3 in the previous round to set up this weekend's meeting. Last Saturday Lothian Thistle secured a 5-1 win over Tynecastle in the SFA South Region Challenge Cup.  This will mean their confidence is high for the meeting with the Championship side.  St Mirren manager Jack Ross has already seen the in-form Vale side in action and admits he won't be taking them lightly.

He said: "It's nice to have it to look forward to and it's different. In cup competitions I like to get drawn against someone out with our league. When we come round to the game the players will look forward to it and enjoy the different experience of it.   They've had a great season so far and I know they won again on Saturday and what they've achieved in the league has been terrific, but I look forward to it.  James and I went to their game against Peebles a couple of midweeks ago. It shows the respect we are giving them in terms of how we prepare for the game that our preparation is the same and consistent as it is for any opposition. We'll play what we feel is our strongest team to win the match. There are sometimes one or two changes depending on what you want to do for a specific game and we've obviously had players away with the Scotland U21s so we'll assess them. But we'll treat it as every other game for us and with the utmost respect."  

Jack was also pleased to see Harry Davis return to action and say the defender comes into his thoughts for Saturday's game. The manager went on: "He did really good. He's had a couple of weeks full training now, but eight months is a long period to be out for. His general fitness is good it's just the sharpness aspect of it. I was really pleased with him. It was a good test as well because they had some strong players playing and he's come through it fine. He's starting to be in my thoughts and he may be around the squad on Saturday which is a bonus. It just strengthens us. We've had a difficult season in that regard because we've been missing players consistently through the season and it's left us a little short. It'd be great to have Gary (MacKenzie) and Josh (Todd) back as well. But getting Harry back is at least one back and he showed in his spell here last year how important a player he could be. Gary is still working back from his Achilles. I think timescale wise we are hoping he is getting towards the end of it and in a week, week and a half's time, he will be back training with us. He's getting closer but by the time that comes around he'll have been out 15/16 weeks. Being out that length of time it takes a little while to get back to full fitness as well."