Gary Naysmith: Stenhousemuir simply have to beat Montrose and hope Inverness Caley Thistle trip up

Gary Naysmith says his Stenhousemuir side simply have to win at all costs this Saturday against Montrose - and that anything other than three points could “leave a sour taste” heading into a potential play-off campaign.

The Warriors have managed to take the Scottish League One title race to the final day after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Alloa Athletic at Ochilview Park, but they still need things to go there way in order to be crowned champions. The part-timers, who have pushed full-time Inverness Caley Thistle all the way this season, need to beat Stewart Petrie’s team at Links Park and hope that Hamilton Accies do them a favour in the Highlands and win. The good news for Stenhousemuir is that ninth-placed Accies need a victory too - with their goal being to climb above East Fife and out of the relegation play-off position.

This weekend could cap off what would undoubtedly be the biggest achievement in the club’s history but Naysmith is treating Saturday’s trip to Angus like any other fixture.

Speaking to the Falkirk Herald, the ex-Scotland full-back said: “It is a tremendous achievement that we have managed to take it to the final day. I honestly thought after we had lost at Cove Rangers that that chance had probably gone. But then East Fife do you a favour after we did our job against Alloa. What we have is a slim chance, but to even have that chance is amazing really. When you flip back to the first league game of the season against Alloa (2-1 defeat at home), if somebody had turned to you and said ‘this will be your only defeat of the season at home in the league, and you're going to be going to Montrose with a chance of winning the league on the final day’ then I wouldn't have believed it. The players have put in a phenomenal effort as part-time footballers over the course, we still had trialists involved when that first Alloa match came around.

“I think it's important that the players realise what we've got to do this Saturday and that's to win the game. We have 90 minutes to win the game. I've been in football since I left school at 16 and I've never been in a situation where you can win the title on the last day. When I've had success at my previous clubs and here, we had won the league with a few games to go. So I've never been in this position so it's not just the players but from my experience you can only focus on your task and our task is that we've got to try and beat Montrose. If we do that and Inverness get a point or they win, then they will have deserved to win the league. What we want to do is make sure that we've done our job because it would leave a sour taste in the mouth, that's for sure, if Hamilton beat Inverness and we've not took care of Montrose.”

After a surprise 2-0 defeat away to Cove Rangers the weekend previous, the Warriors got back to winning ways against the Wasps last Saturday, winning 1-0 thanks to substitute Dale Carrick’s close-range strike. That victory was Stenhousemuir’s maiden win over Andy Graham’s side this term, and Naysmith was delighted with the response from his players.

“It was a really important win, just to get back on track,” he said. “There was a lot of other things that made it a very pleasing win, not the obvious bit. We hadn’t beaten Alloa yet either. We had drawn 0-0 twice and lost here on the opening day, when I actually thought we played so well. We wanted to end the league campaign with one home defeat in 18 and we have managed that. We also didn’t want to lose two games in a row for the first time, and we avoided that too. The main thing for me was making sure that the players showed that Cove was a one-off.”

‘Montrose want to win just as much as we do’

This weekend’s opponents Montrose sit in sixth spot - and they don’t have much to play for on paper. They can finish fifth but have no play-off hopes or fears. The Angus outfit however have enjoyed a decent season against Stenhousemuir, and they have a handful of club heroes playing for last time, including the likes of Kerr Waddell and all-time appearance holder Terry Masson.

Naysmith said: “Sometimes when there's no pressure on a team, players can just go out and play and that can be difficult to play against. They've scored a few goals against us this season, I think the results have been quite split. They've also got two or three players that are leaving after a long period at the club, Terry Masson and there's a couple of other players that will want to go out on a high. We can’t affect what Montrose do, we can only put on our best performance. But I do think that it is easy to look at Montrose and think they have little to play - that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

The boss confirmed that centre-back Nicky Jamieson and Dunfermline loan star Kane Ritchie-Hosler aren’t available this weekend due to injury. Defender Jamieson is seeing a specialist after a scan while winger Ritchie-Hosler is being assessed by his parent club.