Gary Naysmith: Stenhousemuir players' strong mentality shone through in crucial Arbroath win

The Warriors went into Saturday evening’s live televised clash at Ochilview knowing that Cove Rangers, Alloa Athletic and Queen of the South had all won their 3pm kick-offs, putting the pressure on.

And they made sure they kept up pace at the top, with second-half goals from Blair Alston and Ross Taylor sealing a crucial three points against the Red Lichties to see them go level on points with Cove at the top.

Speaking to the Falkirk Herald, ex-Scotland full-back Naysmith admitted: “There was a wee bit of pressure on us. We knew if we got beat today, Arbroath would have gone five in front of us, and they've got their game in hand too.

“So there was the potential if you lose today, that they go eight points in front of you, and eight points to make up in this league is very difficult.

“Cove done their job today, Queen of the South done their job, Alloa done their job, so all the teams around us actually won.

“But I thought the players handled that really well going into the match, it is a different situation being the later kick-off and it disrupts your normal matchday.”

On his side’s performance, he added: “I thought we had a lot of good individual performances, and we had a real good team work ethic about us. We had to work hard.

“Over the piece we deserved to win the game. Especially in the second half, once we got Ross (Taylor) and Euan (O’Reilly) into the game, we really took it to them.

“Corey (O’Donnell) ran the channels so well. I thought that it looked like we were going to get a second goal despite there being not much in it overall.”

Stenhousemuir now travel to bottom club Dumbarton this Saturday looking to make it four wins on the spin in the third tier.

And Naysmith says his side are in a “good place” heading into the final 11 matches of the league campaign.

“In the last (league) seven games, we've won four, drew two, lost one,” he said. “So that's 14 points in the last seven games, that's really good going. We're in a good place.

“Every game's going to be like that now. Today there was a question asked to the group about how the results had went, playing against the league leaders, how could we respond? And I thought they responded in the right way.

"Big Matty (Aitken) was back on the bench. He’ll have had another’s week of training. We had a proper bench – most of the guys would expect to start.

"It’s good that we have a strong squad for the run-in, we’ll need that.”