16/03/22

Mark Reynolds Looks Ahead to Montrose Clash

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Defender Mark Reynolds is looking forward to the challenge of facing Montrose in our cinch League One clash at Links Park on Saturday.

The meeting with the Gable Endies is the first of four very tough back-to-back games on the road as we attempt to extend our unbeaten run in the league, which now stands at 19 matches.

Mark accepts the 90 minutes against Montrose will be among the toughest of the campaign so far, but he’s relishing the opportunity to hopefully back up last weekend’s impressive 4-1 victory over Clyde at Balmoral Stadium with another strong performance.

“Our record is great at home, but our unbeaten run in the league suggests we have done pretty well so far on our travels too,” said Mark.

“Since the day I arrived at the club the only talk has been about our performances and how much we need to put into games to get the results we want.

“On our day, we are match for anyone, whether that’s at Balmoral Stadium or on the road.

“We know we have goals in the team, so if we can keep things tight at the other end we know we will have a good chance of achieving what we set out to do.

“Montrose are clearly a quality team and they have their own reasons for needing the three points, so it should be a cracking game.

“It’s the sort you love to be involved in when you are a player.”

Mark scored his first goal for the club, to make it 3-1 against Clyde, early in the second period.

That was after a first half that included left-back Harry Milne being red carded because the referee judged he had cleared a shot from an opponent off our line with his right arm.

Former Aberdeen, Motherwell and Dundee United defender Mark is happy his goal at least removed any chance of Clyde using their numerical superiority to their advantage in the final part of the game.

“I would like to point out I actually scored two goals – my first and last for Cove,” joked Mark.

“It was very pleasing because it came at a stage when the game was still very much in the balance.

“We were all upset by what had happened to Harry, I had a great view of the incident that led to him being shown the red card.

“It was never in it’s life a sending off, it was actually a brilliant clearance from Harry.

“I’ve never been one for criticising match officials, I will leave others to give their views on that.

“But the outcome was we were down to 10 men in a match that we knew we really had to win, so we were even more upset they managed to get things back to 1-1 from the penalty.

“We managed to get our noses back in front, thanks to a great finish from Fraser (Fyvie), just before half-time.

“There was still a chance Clyde could have come back again at that point, so it was great that I managed to make things a little more comfortable with the goal not long into the second half.

“The ball just dropped to me and I had a go and it was great to see it fly into the top corner.

“I don’t score a lot, I think it’s at least two years since my last one, but that goal seemed to deflate Clyde, they looked as if they felt their chance had maybe gone at that point.

“It was a reward for what I felt was a great team performance – and a great reaction to what could have been a difficult situation.

“If you had been a neutral watching the second half you probably wouldn’t have noticed we were  a man down, that’s how comfortable we felt.

“That wasn’t by accident though, we speak in training all the time about what we need to do to handle every eventually, including if we get a player sent off.

“We knew exactly how we had to organise ourselves to cope – and the fact the quality of our training means the boys are still sharp and fit at this stage of the season meant we were able to go on and see the game out comfortably.

“The manager also made it clear at half-time that he didn’t want us to fall into the trap of sitting in, which can happen to teams when they are down to 10 players.

“He wanted us to keep playing on the front foot, to keep pushing forward and look to create chances to kill them off and that’s what we did.”

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