Furious Dalbeattie Star boss Eddie Warwick has challenged his players to show their bottle after Saturday’s defeat to Stranraer.
The South of Scotland League champs went down 4-2 at Islecroft, a result which knocked them off the top of the table. And Warwick said: “We may have the better technical players but it was the perfect example that you can have all the talent in the world, but if it decides not to turn up, you’ll not do anything. “The heart, desire, grit, effort, work rate and team spirit Stranraer showed was absolutely outstanding.
They covered every blade of grass, they came to Dalbeattie and wanted it more and that’s the most disappointing thing. “I always praise the players, they have given us everything and done very little wrong in a year and a half in the South, but that wasn’t good enough. “My biggest question to them is where’s your bottle? “It’s been coming.
We weren’t great against Saints, we definitely weren’t great against Uppers and it was our worst showing of the season, then we’ve been caught out by a team with grit, aggression and some good players. “They fully deserved it but there’s question marks for me about just how much we wanted it.” Stranraer opened the scoring through Martin McClorey but that was soon cancelled out by Kyle Higgins.