Warriors look to engineer way past Forres Mechanics

Despite the Warriors being held by the the Highland League outfit, Ferguson was reasonably happy with his side’s performance.

He said: “There was an intensity about the way they played and they retained the ball pretty well at times, created a number of opportunities in the game and if it wasn’t for some excellent goalkeeping on their part and a couple of missed chances we would have scored more goals than we did.

“The two goals that we conceded again came from set plays; one goes through the wall and the other was from a ball we didn’t deal with as well as we should have done.

“But other than that our general display was good and I was happy with the way we performed.

“I saw a team on the pitch on Saturday which, given where we are and some of the results we’ve had, was really pleasing to see. There was a real spirit amongst them.”

Ferguson feels his side should be able to overcome Forres and book a trip to Premiership side St Johnstone in the next round - but is taking nothing for granted.

He said: “We’ve got to get through this tie first and foremost. The chance to go and play against a top six Premiership team doesn’t come about that often so there’s an incentive there to go and pit your wits against them.

“But our focus has to be about this tie. It’s quite clearly going to be a different type of game because of the surface here. The pitch up there was good but it was quite soft. It was a grass surface and it’s astroturf this weekend. It should be a quicker pitch.

“But Saturday’s game was real cup tie, there was a tension about the game, an excitement about the game which was good and I would expect that to be the same again this weekend.

“I saw enough in the game on Saturday to know that they will still cause us problems, particularly in deadball situations, but I also saw from our team’s perspective us competing well and playing with the ball with a better level than we have been doing of late.

“If we can perform to that level then I’m confident we can get through the tie on our own patch.”