December 5th 2023
IT may have been a thumping 8-0 win over a young Elgin City side in the first round of the North of Scotland Cup for Nairn County last night but manager Ronnie Sharp still feels there is a lot of room for improvement in his side. Adam Porritt netted a first half double with Dylan Mackenzie and Kenny McKenzie also on target as County took a four-goal lead in with them at the break. Porritt completed his hat-trick after the break with Mackenzie also notching another two to bag his treble too with substitute Jack Maclean also on target. Sharp said: “I thought we were very poor for the first 20 minutes, especially in the last third of the park – the finishing was pretty poor and we were slow for that first 20 minutes. Once we got one goal, we settled down and we were better from there but the second half was kind of the same. We were slow to start again and the decision-making in the last third was a problem in both halves." “Defensively, we looked OK but it is nothing to get carried away with and we still have plenty to work on. Elgin had a lot of young boys out but we have a lot of young boys ourselves. We have had to change the way we play a wee bit and we are still getting used to that. It is going to take us a few weeks for things to settle down – we have players out and in over the next few weeks for various reasons and I think that is going to be a bit of a problem." “We just take it as it is – the performance was good in bits and poor in bits but we will take the win and move on to Saturday.” Adam Porritt’s hat-trick was his first for the club and follows up his four goals in the final three friendlies of pre-season. But he is set to drop out of the team as Sharp revealed: “He misses the next three games now. He has been scoring regularly in pre-season and has taken it into this game. We need him to take it into our Highland League fixtures too. “It was good for Dylan to score a hat-trick as well. He is back playing up front as the central striker, so it was good to see him on the score sheet.” The weekend trip to Deveronvale sees Nairn take on a side who hammered in seven unanswered goals on the opening day of the Highland League season as the Banffers thrashed Lossiemouth. Sharp said: “We have a few problems for that game as Adam Porritt and Adam Naismith will both miss out while Gregg Main is injured. We hope to have Fraser Dingwall back but we will be lacking in the centre of the park – Ryan MacDonald is available again but he has not been training a lot lately." “These are all boys who can play in the centre of the park, which is a key area but it looks like we are going to struggle in there on Saturday.” Graeme Macleod
