Sauchie boss Fraser Duncan has urged his players to forget the past few weeks and hit the goal trail as they continue their defence of the East of Scotland Cup at home to Broxburn on Saturday.

The gaffer is hopeful that the arrival of former Linlithgow Rose hitman Iain Diack can be the catalyst for the rest of the squad to find their form, but warned they must be prepared for the defensive wall that is likely to be put in front of them by the visitors at Beechwood Park this weekend.

Duncan told Advertiser sport: “The last two weeks have been poor from us, but they are gone now and we have to move on quickly. The East of Scotland Cup tie will be another very difficult game for us, but the best remedy for us at the minute is to go out and score a few goals.

“We are just struggling to score goals at the minute for whatever reason, but hopefully with the arrival of Iain Diack that will help us resolve that.

“Iain brings us much needed experience to the team and he will get goals for us, but now it is about getting him the right service to allow him to go and do his stuff. Hopefully, by bringing him in it will spur on the rest of them because I believe that Callum Hendrie, Conor Kelly and Darren Cummings just need the confidence of scoring a goal to get back flying again.

“We really need to cut out the defensive errors that are hampering us at the minute because when you couple that with our lack of goals recently then it is very difficult to win games. We also need to work hard on trying to find new ways to break teams down when they come and sit in against us.

“That could very well happen again on Saturday when Broxburn come here so we need to work hard on that and be ready for it.” Duncan believes the festive break has not done his side any favours in terms of upsetting their rhythm, but admits he is still in shock at the manner of their 2-1 loss at home to Camelon last weekend.

He said: “The Camelon game is one that I still cannot believe we lost. It is hard to take because it is two errors from us that gifted them their goals. We got ourselves in front with Morgy’s goal and looked by far the better side, but then Darren Dolan has made the mistake for the first goal and we found ourselves going in 1-1 at half time.

“I have no problem with Darren or any other player making a mistake because these things happen in football and to be fair he made up for his error with a few key saves, but we need to cut out the frequency of these errors.

“Camelon defended for their lives and took their chance, but it is another error that gifts it to them. The break has definitely upset our momentum and so we have to battle to get that back now.” The 31-year-old gaffer is now preparing his side for their second match playing as competition holders in the East of Scotland Cup, and he reckons they deal with having a target on their back and get back to the basics if they want to progress to the latter stages once again.

Duncan added: “It is a different pressure for us as the holders and there is certainly much more pressure on the players as a result to deliver than there normally would be. It is all about how they deal with that now, but they dealt with it well in the previous round.

“We will have to get back to basics this week, in terms of our performance and try to get the players back believing in themselves again, but maybe this competition is just what we need.”