Hutchie boss doesn't want excuses '“ he wants mudlarks

Carr revealed that some of his squad haven’t taken too kindly to conditions of late, Peebles Rovers’ Whitestone Park proving far from perfect despite Saturday’s 5-2 win in the Borders.

And Carr isn’t receptive to the excuses that are being bandied about the changing room.

“A few of them have been like ‘oh but we train on astroturf’, but you’ve got to adapt. Our home pitch at Saughton has cut up badly but you’ve got to roll the sleeves up. I’m not bothered if it isn’t pretty as long as we get the three points. One or two of them needed a wee shake so we changed the team about on Saturday.

“It was a hard game with the pitch, Peebles played well in spells and made it difficult for us. But I think they ran out of steam a wee bit in the last 25 minutes and we stuck to the cause and managed to get the points.”

Goals from Scott Taylor-McKenzie, James Guy, Jamie Devlin, Willis Hare and Liam O’Donnell went some way to making amends for last weekend’s 1-1 stalemate with struggling Tweedmouth Rangers.

“The main thing was to get back on track against Peebles and we’ve managed to do that,” Carr said. “I said to the lads that we’re still unbeaten, although last week felt like a defeat so it was the right way to bounce back. It was two points dropped. Tweedmouth defended like their lives depended on it. It was one of these days where we could have been playing for another hour and we wouldn’t have found the winner. We had the chances to win the game and never took them.”

Elsewhere, Leith Athletic are out of the South Region Challenge Cup after a 4-1 defeat by Lowland League side Cumbernauld Colts at Meadowbank 3G.

It’s the second time the reigning league champions have been beaten by their North Lanarkshire opponents having lost to an Owen Ronald header in their William Hill Scottish Cup first-round replay last month.

Heriot-Watt’s Football Nation Qualifying Cup second-round clash at Hawick Royal Albert was postponed.