East Kilbride Thistle "excited" to face leaders Glenvale as side try to get reiginte season

Boss Aaron Connolly says EK Thistle are excited to face league leaders Glenvale this weekend – as they look to bounce back from a 7-0 hammering by Gartcairn in the cup.

The Jags saw their cup action for this season come to an abrupt halt as defeat at home to Gartcairn means they are now out of the West of Scotland Cup, as well as the Junior and South Challenge Cups.

All of their focus is now on West of Scotland Fourth Division business for the rest of the campaign and Connolly hopes they can reignite their promotion push by upsetting the table toppers, who sit 10 points clear of eighth-place Jags.

He said: “We are really excited for the Glenvale game.

“It is fair to say we’ve had some challenging moments over the last few weeks. Our form in the first 12 games of the season was good and we should have had more points on the board than we managed. We have tailed off a little, but what better game than one against the league leaders to try and get ourselves back in contention at the top end of the table.

“It has been tough but the cups are immaterial. We knew we were up against strong sides and the league is our bread and butter.

“Over the course of the season, I think we can be reasonably pleased with most of it and that is a huge step forward from where we were at points last season.

“There’s a lot of young players in the group still learning, and so am I in terms of management.

“We go into Saturday excited to get back to league business and that is our focus for the rest of the season.

“We are out of the cups now. Everyone would like a cup run but it is not to be for us this season. Our focus is always about being competitive in the league and we have been, so far.”

In the cup defeat to Gartcairn, the Jags found