SAUCHIE boss Fraser Duncan could not hide his disappointment as his team's weekend game was called off on Saturday.

The visit of Kilwinning Rangers was thrown out just hours before kick-off due to the weather, meaning the team had extra time to prepare for Wednesday evening's trip to face Hill of Beath.

Duncan told Advertiser Sport: "There was a lot of rain on Friday night. The park was in good condition on Friday and still in a good condition on Saturday morning.

"But, with the amount of rain that came down, the referee came for the inspection at 9.30am which is still quite early but he's made the call. Obviously, Kilwinning are doing a lot of travelling so for them to do the travelling and for us to take the chance it just wasn't worth it.

"Was it playable at half past two, two o'clock? I don't know, it might have been.

"We couldn't afford to take that chance and have them travelling so the referee made the decision and that was it."

With restrictions and protocols being followed all across Scottish football, it's not unusual for teams of any level to have a match called off at the last minute.

Duncan continued: "At this level there's always the risk of games being called off.

"Our pitch had a lot of work done over the summertime and it can take loads and loads of water but it takes a bit of time to drain. At the time the ref came he spotted a couple of wee puddles that could stop the ball.

"The boys know – if I'm being honest everything is stop-start the now, we get going for a wee while then we don't get going."

Despite having longer to prepare, Duncan stresses his team would rather have played the game.

He said: "We wanted to play Saturday, we were ready to go. We had some good news on Friday, a few boys who had niggles were able to shake that off on Friday and we had a good session on Thursday night.

"Our goalkeeper Charles Clark is still suspended, he misses the game tonight because he was meant to miss the game on Saturday. But Brett Young has done really well.

"We've got Iain Syme, he played the last game against Linlithgow and done well and came through that unscathed so there's no issues with him.

"Brian Morgan, who was carrying a wee bit of a groin niggle but he seems to have recovered from that as well.

"So we are looking to clear up a few wee knocks and niggles at the minute but they seem to be happening just because of the lay-off and then getting straight back into football.

"We're good to go, we've got a strong enough squad to take us into the game."