Manager Jim McInally has given an update on the fitness of seven players this week ahead of Saturday’s League 1 game with Cove Rangers. There is mixed news with three players set to return, two new injury doubts have emerged, one long term injury has cleared up and one loan player is set to return to action for his parent club’s under-18 side.
Jim’s updates were –
Jordon Brown – Jordon trained fully on Tuesday night and looks to be fully over his hamstring problem as there was no reaction on Wednesday. We will check in with him on Friday after Thursday’s training session but it looks good for him to be available for the weekend.
Alan Cook – Alan did some training on Thursday which was good to see. He has stopped wearing the protective boot, as his shin fracture has cleared up, so we will step things up with him in the next few weeks.
He is a very committed player who has attended every training session and game during his time out but the one thing we will not do is allow that commitment rush him back in action. That probably happened earlier in the season and will not be repeated.
Ryan Duncan – Ryan’s debut for us will hopefully happen before the end of this month. He is back training at Aberdeen and is due to play for their under-18 team in their next game. If he comes through that okay then he should be available to us thereafter.
Simon Ferry – Simon trained on Tuesday and should be okay for Cove. Last weekend at Airdrie he was still feeling a bit of discomfort so we opted not to include him in either the starting eleven or the substitutes list.
Niah Payne – A bit like Simon Niah was not quite ready last Saturday due to his ankle issue however he did a full session on Tuesday. He should be involved in some capacity in our next game.
Hamish Ritchie – Hamish has been carrying a calf problem for a few weeks now so we rested him on Tuesday night. He has always been available since joining us earlier in the year so hopefully the problem will clear itself up this week and he will be right for Saturday.
David Wilson – David has played a lot of football recently after a few months out of the game. He was feeling that after Saturday’s game so we rested him from training as well. We will check him out on Friday night/ Saturday morning and see how he is.
He will want to play, I know that, but he will only do so if he is 100% right.
Jim added: “Gary Fraser’s knee operation is still scheduled for next month. He will have a two/ three month recovery programme after that and can still make an impact this season.”
