SAUCHIE boss Fraser Duncan has urged his players not to take their eye off the ball as they look to keep out of the relegation battle at the foot of the Super League East.

The Wee County outfit are currently 12 points clear of the drop zone, but the bottom three sides have as many as five games in hand over them currently and so the gaffer reckons they still need to post another few good results in their final four games to secure their status for another season.

The Beechwood Park side host Carnoustie this weekend and the manager sees it as a must-win encounter for them.

Duncan told Advertiser sport: “We are in a strange situation to be in with us being so far ahead of the teams below us in terms of games. We only have four games left while some of them have double figure games left yet, so in theory we could still get sucked into a relegation dogfight. I think we need to look at the Carnoustie game on Saturday as an absolute must win and if we can get the three points then go to St Andrews and avoid defeat then it should be enough to confirm our league status for next season.

“The teams below us would have to then go on an almighty run of wins to catch us and I can't see it. We can't afford to take our eye off the ball though. We are at home to Carnoustie this weekend and we must look to go win it, but with our performances at the minute being so erratic we will just have to wait and see what happens. We know it will be a hard task for us because they beat us up there earlier in the season so we will need to get back to our best form to win.”

Duncan had nothing but sympathy for his understrength side last weekend as they crashed to a late 2-0 defeat at home to Bonnyrigg Rose and he admits his players simply ran out of gas.

Sauchie were handicapped by the suspension of captain Brian Morgan as well as the injury to key man David Morrison, but the gaffer hopes the return of at least their skipper can provide them with a timely boost this weekend.

He said: “Last weekend I just felt that we run out of legs a little bit. We matched them and competed well for 70 minutes in the game, but at that point we seemed to run out of steam. They seized on our drop in tempo and as we switched off they have punished us. The second goal we were pushing for the equaliser and they have broke away and scored. We only had the two subs as well so we were limited in what we could do from the bench and to be honest I cannot fault the boys for the effort. We had guys on the pitch with knocks and niggles who weren't 100% so that doesn't help.

“David Morrison's injury has just come at the worst possible time for us and Brian Morgan's two game suspension came at an even worse time. Morgy is back this week though so that will be a huge boost for us and with Morri it is just a case of giving him enough rest to give him a chance to make it, but he is a major doubt at this stage. Ant McTaggart has started back training this week, but he won't be ready to play for a few weeks yet.”

The 32-year-old boss was delighted to see the return from injury of Beechwood Park favourite Darren Cummings, but admits he was forced into to playing the star weeks ahead of schedule due to a lack of availability last week.

Duncan added: “It was great to see Daz Cummings back out there for us, but he is still miles off the pace. Next season is really the priority now for him and I don't see him adding much for us this year other than the odd sub appearance. We were forced to play him on Saturday when we shouldn't have, but it is realistically going to take him a number of weeks to get back up to full speed. He will be like a new signing for us next season if we can get him right in the summer so that has to be our aim with him.”