Falkirk FC: Manager John McGlynn says Bairns players’ trip to Dublin last weekend was ‘massive’ in building team spirit

McGlynn, who wasn’t in attendance for the two-night trip to the Irish capital, told the Falkirk Herald: “Events like that are massive in building up team spirit and camaraderie.

“From my point of view that’s a big part of it.

"It’s the guys being comfortable amongst themselves, being together and gaining that trust and belief in each other which they do every week in the games.

"Going away and having a few days together will do no harm whatsoever.

"It is that time of year where basically nearly every football club, their team goes away for a weekend after the game and they’re back and you’ve got to pick up the pieces.

"The guys have trained well and will be well prepared for the game on Saturday.

"But it (the weekend in Dublin) does help and I hope it’s going to provide something that will help kick us on even more.”

Falkirk go into the Kelty game having not played in the league since a 0-0 draw at Montrose on November 28, with last Saturday’s home fixture against Cove Rangers being postponed after heavy snowfall hit the Falkirk Stadium’s 3G surface.

McGlynn said: “It was a big game with Cove coming and being in good form. We were really hyped up for it, prepared and ready to go.

"So it was frustrating the game was off. It was a shock, we didn’t expect that amount of snow to come in such a short period of time and it caught everyone out as far as I could see.

"There was a pitch inspection called for 10 o’clock and it had no chance. There wasn’t really anything we could do about it with Cove travelling down the road and they were leaving at 10.30.

“So you couldn’t have them coming here and the game was off so we had to make an early call.”

Falkirk go into this weekend second in the table with 34 points from 14 games, two points behind leaders Hamilton Accies who have played a game more as they had a 5-0 home success over Queen of the South last Saturday in a game which beat the weather.

When asked if it is a psychological blow now being second having led the league for long spells this season, McGlynn said: “We know we’re going to play 36 games so it's just one of these things, it is what it is.

"We were behind Accies earlier on in the season, we jumped above them and obviously it’s up to us to jump above them again and over the period of the games to come that’s exactly what we aim to do and hopefully we can do it.”

Gary Oliver is back in the Bairns squad to face Kelty but Stephen McGinn and Brad McKay remain out.