Sauchie boss Fraser Duncan has urged his men to put friendships to one side as they travel to face a Bo’ness United side containing club legend Darren Cummings in their opening league fixture of the new Super League East season this weekend.

The Beechwood Park side face up against their former talisman for the first time since his summer switch to Newton Park, but instead of worrying how to put the shackles on him, the gaffer is hoping his new-look forward line can cause some problems of their own for last year’s league runners up.

Duncan told Advertiser sport: “The Bo’ness game is a huge game to begin our campaign. In an ideal world with a young squad like ours you would like to start off with the teams you expect to be in and around us in the league till we get a feel for the task ahead of us, but instead, just like last year, we have two of last season’s best sides in our first two games.

“It is a tough ask for us with those games coming in such quick succession now with Bo’ness on Saturday and then Kelty on Wednesday, but there is nothing we can do about it and to be fair we cannot prepare the players any better than we have done.

“It is a definitely a weird one for us at the weekend where we now have to face off against Darren Cummings when usually it would be up to other teams to worry about facing up to him against us.

“We wish Darren all the success in the world at Bo’ness, but I hope he has a shocker on Saturday!

“I dont think we can go into the game worrying about how to stop him, but instead we will go and look to give them some problems to worry about ourselves.

“Darren always has some quality to add to a game, but we have some exciting young strikers now who have taken his place so we definitely have some fire power of our own.” Sauchie’s summer acquisitions have all been young, exciting players who the manager believes can develop into top players for the club, but he has warned them they must now look to hit the ground running if they want to have a successful season.

Duncan took the decision to call off the club’s final pre-season friendly scheduled for last Friday against Beith at home and he reckons it was the right decision with so many of his squad nursing minor injuries.

He said: “We had to cancel the Beith game last Friday because I felt that it would have been a game too far for us in pre-season. We were nursing a number of niggles and knocks which I felt might have turned into injuries had we played the game.

“We have to make sure that we are fully ready for our opening league fixture and so I think it was the right decision.

“It will come down to how quickly our young lads can settle into the league and they will have to do that very quickly because we are straight in at the deep end.

“That may end up being in our favour and what I would like this season is for us to establish ourselves very quickly in the league to a position away from the bottom that sets us up nicely for the rest of the season.

“A repeat of last season’s top five finish would be an unbelievable achievement with so many young players, but I feel it is something that we must strive for. I would love a real good run in the Scottish Cup.

“Not only for the progression and benefit of the club, but also in terms of the development of the players in this squad. Those are the type of games that give vital experience that would allow us to continually compete in the league every week.” The 31-year-old boss revealed how the club face a race against time to get club captain Brian Morgan fit for their crunch curtain-raiser, but he says he will give influential midfielder every chance.

Duncan added: “We are sweating at the minute over the fitness of our captain Brian Morgan. He is struggling to shake off the injury that has kept him out for the past few weeks, but we have a physio in working with him this week and it would be a huge boost for us if he could make it. We will have to just wait and see”