East Kilbride cup win comes at a cost as striker picks up injury

East Kilbride boss Mick Kennedy admits Saturday’s South Challenge Cup quarter-final win over Ashfield came at a cost - with in-form striker Robert Thomson set for a spell on the sidelines.

The big striker felt his hamstring in Saturday’s 3-2 win at Ashfield, in which he scored the winner, and could be set to miss key games as Kilby look to close out the Lowland League title this month.

The West of Scotland League Second Division side made Kilby work for their semi-final clash with Tranent at the end of the month, twice pulling level before being edged out.

An own goal from the hosts and a John Robertson strike had EK 2-1 up at the break, and while Ashfield levelled for the second time in the game after 49 minutes, Thomson drilled home the winner in 72 minutes before hobbling off.

Kennedy said: “Robert went off injured on Saturday so we will need to see how that develops over the next few days.

“We are really starting to struggle for bodies now and it is getting ridiculous with the amount of injuries we’ve had this season.

“He has got an issue with his hamstring and we will need to have a proper look at it when we are back in with the players tonight.

“It is not looking great.

“It was always going to be a difficult game playing on a community pitch. No disrespect to it, but the dynamics are very tight and challenging.

“It was difficult but we got through it. We were extremely good in the first half and we should have been out of sight, but we conceded from two set-pieces and it just made the game a bit more problematic than it had to be.

“That was about as strong a side as we could have put out.

“We had right centre midfielders playing in defence and that will probably be the same case for the next game.

“We had five