'Getting back to winnings ways before Cove Scottish Cup tie a must' - Pace boss Smith

The Pace will take on Championship side Cove Rangers in Aberdeen on Saturday, November 26, but first they face fellow East of Scotland outfit Tynecastle at Westfield in the Challenge Cup third round.

“That’s us on three games now without a victory,” Smith explained to the Falkirk Herald. “Saturday’s game is that wee bit more important now because we want to go into the Cove Rangers game on the back of a good result.

"We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, it is still very early in the season and we had a great October. We are half way into this month and it has been really poor but we don’t become a bad team overnight – we just need to iron out some mistakes across the park.”We always feel we can do well against sides in higher divisions and that will be no different on Saturday against Tynecastle. We also want to make sure that we get as many players game time as possible going into the Scottish Cup game.

"It really is the biggest match in the club’s history so we want to make sure we are in the best place to give it out best shot.”

Dunipace’s latest loss came over the weekend, with the side losing out 2-0 to now second-placed Glenrothes on first division league duty despite the away side going down to ten men.

"I had no complaints about the result,” the boss said of the defeat. “Credit to Glenrothes because they stuck in and made it difficult for us.

"We had early opportunities in the game and we didn’t take them. We reacted well to their first goal but the second was a tough blow and it was a really poor one to lose. A mistake and a bit of mix-up at the back allowed them to score and that made it an uphill battle at half time.

"It is frustrating because it has happened a number of times over the past year or so, we’ve went two or three goals down in a game then turned it on and came back into it, but that won’t always happen.

"We missed a couple of decent chances but even then we still looked like we were getting back into it, but it was one of those days.”