Belief key to Bo'ness Athletic's record over top-flight teams, says ace Blair Woodburn

The Newtown Park side currently sit at the top of the East of Scotland Third Division after 25 matches played, commanding a 16 point lead between themselves and second-placed Armadale Thistle.

And on Saturday afternoon, they notched another Premier Division cup scalp, defeating Musselburgh Athletic 3-1 at home in the League Cup second round, despite being 46 placings under the East Lothian outfit.

“We’ve hit a really positive patch of form,” centre-half Woodbrun told the Falkirk Herald. “Normally, if a Third Division team is coming up against the team third in the Premier Division, you would think that it would feel like a daunting task.

“But we just have so much confidence and belief in ourselves that we went into the match thinking that we were going to beat them, and that we were going to to take the game to them and attack them from the outset.

“We set up in our typical formation which enables us to just for teams and attack them. It doesn’t matter who we play and I think it shows where we are as a club that we have that belief and intent against anyone.

“The idea of sitting in and being stuffy doesn’t work for us and the gaffer Willie (Irvine) is a big believer in not making much of the opposition – he just tells us to foucs on what we can do in attacking areas because if we do that then we can beat anyone in the East of Scotland leagues.”

Athletic have hit the headlines this term for their goalscoring form, having netted a whopping 133 goals on league duty, with three players having hit over 30 goals – including Tiwi Daramola, who is the East of Scotland’s top hitman with 62 strikes.

However, the defence has also impressed this season, having only conceded just 19 goals in their 25 league games so far.

“It has suited us to go under the radar,” Woodburn said of his backline. “We all love defending and with the way we play, even although we may be a few goals up, we have to defend a fair bit and it is usually the case that we don't have many men back.

“But we have a settled backline and we all know our jobs. We have great experience too with the likes of myself and Jonny Mitchell and Warren Paterson in the team. I do think belief is the biggest thing for us, we just have so much of it going into games.”