Peterhead return to Balmoor on Saturday as Montrose make the trip north for this William Hill League One clash, with kick-off set for 3pm.
The visitors arrive sitting eighth in the table, having collected eleven points so far this campaign. Stewart Petrie’s men will take confidence from their last meeting with the Blue Toon, when they claimed all three points at Links Park.
Peterhead, meanwhile, are aiming to bounce back after a challenging week. A defeat to Hamilton at Broadwood last Saturday was followed by a midweek loss away to Stirling Albion in the KDM Evolution Trophy. The squad will be determined to respond in front of the home support and get back to winning ways.
A competitive derby encounter is expected as both sides look to climb the League One standings.
From Jordon Brown: “It’s great to be preparing for a home game again, it feels like a while since we had the deflating feeling of losing the record against Caley in a game we felt we deserved more in, but tomorrow is an exciting one to get back on track at home. It goes without saying results wise its been a very disappointing week but there are a number of reasons from both games to remain positive. This group has had setbacks before and each time we have trusted each other to react in the correct way with a top performance and result. We haven’t been able to train together this week but have managed to get what we need into the guys in terms of game time, training and rest on and off the pitch so the majority of the squad are raring to go.
Montrose is a really difficult opponent and that has shown already this season but also in the recent history between the teams, having been here a while a number of the squad are eager to put that right. It’s as close a game we get to the Cove derby and we hope for a similar strong backing from the Balmoor crowd who have shown up in their numbers and been brilliant this season, it really does make a difference.
The weather in comparison to the last few weeks looks to be ok from a football point of view so it should be a good spectacle and one we want to be on the front foot and bring some real intensity to. Montrose also never played during the week with their game being cancelled so we know we must match that freshness levels especially early in the game.
If we can do that we will be on the right track to secure a result that we are all desperate for to put us back into the top end of the table where we want to be challenging.
Squad wise is getting healthier and it was great to see Andy and Adam come through 90 mins on Tuesday, both were excellent. Pete gets another week closer and Cieran Dunne should have some final clarity from the specialist this week that may finally allow us to put a concrete return timeline together for him. Div Wilson is a doubt as unfortunately and summing up his luck this season he’s picked up a potential broken nose which seen him come off the other night so we will assess that”.
