It’s a big game this Saturday when Talbot travel to face current South of Scotland league leaders Wigton & Bladnoch at Trammerford Park in the 1st preliminary round of the William Hill Scottish Cup. Talbot will be firm favourites to progress into the next round but they will be taking nothing for granted.
Allan McLuckie pointed out “Wigton are at the top of their league for a reason and with four wins out of four they are certainly on a good run. We heard about their 9-1 defeat at Girvan but the word on the street tells us they were missing a few players and you don’t need to look far to see how well our pre-season panned out. Wigton are a mix of players who have been entrenched in the SOSL system and some decent youngsters who have been in the youth set up at QOS and Stranraer so they will be formidable opponents”
Talbot’s season continued on Wednesday night with a hard fought point at Glenafton in the Ardagh Cup and Allan was rather upbeat about events. “This was certainly a game of two halves played in atrocious weather. We very poor in the first half where we gave away the ball too easily and I felt we were being bullied in the middle of the park. At half time I have to be honest and say we were lucky not to be down a couple of more goals. Second half we weathered an opening 10 minutes of Glens pressure and then kicked in. I felt we had a few decent chances before we were awarded a penalty where enough will be said about that, but it was pleasing to see big Martin get his head to a great equalizer.”
Talbot completed the night by signing former Killie and St Mirren youth player Dylan Pooler which pleased Allan. “Dylan comes highly rated to us and when you consider he has been capped at three age levels with Scotland I think we have bagged ourselves a good one. We have to remember that he has played all his football in youth game so it might be a bit of a culture shock playing in the Junior’s. On saying that he has fared well in his two matches and has got stuck in, I’m really looking forward to seeing Dylan progress.
Allan finished off by thanking the Talbot fans who braved the terrible weather on Wednesday night. “I wouldn’t have put a milk bottle out on Wednesday night but a good support came up from the village to cheer us on. You have no idea how much the players appreciate the backing. Thank you”
The officials for the match are Referee: Mike Taylor and assistants Scott Love and Brian Comerford. Weather report is cloudy with a 16% chance of rain, the temperature will be 16c.
