SAUCHIE star Andy Shirra insisted that last Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to Forfar West End was a lot more even than the scoreline suggests.

Shirra and his teammates were beaten by their promotion rivals, making their bid to win the East Premier title even more difficult. And the midfielder admitted that individual mistakes let Sauchie down.

Shirra told Advertiser Sport: “We are down to the bare bones just now but we should still have done a lot better than we did. Individual mistakes cost us.

"There were stupid mistakes, not just from the defence but from the full team.

"In the first half, we played some good stuff and we had a few chances but a mistake has killed us and meant we went in at half time 1-0 down.

"After half time, we have dominated the game, but they have gone up the park twice and scored both times. On paper it looks like they have given us a hammering whereas in reality it was a pretty even game. But it just wasn’t our day. It felt like we could have played all day and just never scored.”

The former Linlithgow Rose man reckons this week is a pivotal one for Sauchie and urged his teammates to finish the job as soon as possible in order to avoid an end-of-season wobble.

Shirra said: “Sometimes in football you do get spells where everything goes against you but we are desperate for that to change. This week is a big one for us. If we win our next three games we have all but won the title but we have to stay focused.

“Last week we had been looking at clinching it against Forfar but now every game that gets ticked off means we are running out of matches. We have to put it to bed, starting on Wednesday. The closer we get to the end of the season without sealing the deal, the more nerves will start to creep in so it’s vital that we finish it off as soon as possible.

“We are just hoping that we get a couple of players back for Wednesday. Once again we lost a couple of players on Saturday and we are having no luck on that front just now. We are having to reshuffle the pack.”

Despite their last two games yielding just a single point, Shirra insisted that he is still confident of securing promotion, and says it’s high time Sauchie returned to the top flight where he feels they belong.

He added: “Playing twice a week shouldn’t be too difficult for us.

"We should be able to cope with that as long as things start to clear up on the injury front. I’m still more than confident we will go up. The squad we have is a Super League squad so we are pretty confident we will get back to where we belong for next season.”