Thorn Athletic boss Barry McLaughlin believes the future is bright for the Johnstone club after thumping neighbours Glenvale.
The St Mirren Hall of Famer left Paisley club Glenvale to take over the managerial reins at Thorn and has beaten his former club twice in relatively quick succession.
Despite missing a number of key players, Thorn ran out comfortable winners at Ferguslie Sport Centre on Saturday to jump up to sixth in the WoSFL Fourth Division table.
As he continues to get to grips with managing his first senior side, McLaughlin paid tribute to his players for the quality of their performance without important teammates to call on.
McLaughlin told Express Sport: “We were missing quite a few boys through work commitments and other things, so we had a few trialists involved and some of the youngers players in as well.
“We were 4-0 up and they scored in the last minute, so it was fairly comfortable throughout. It was a solid performance and the boys have been excellent lately.
“This is my first step into senior management but things don’t change that much in football. I’ve enjoyed it so far but the real challenge has been getting the same team on the park every week. I don’t think we’ve managed that yet.
“I would love to get more continuity in the team selection but, because of work commitments, at this level you’re always going to have to shuffle the pack a bit.
“The boys are working really hard and we’ve called on boys from the 2006s as well and they’ve done fantastically well.
“We’ve had a wide range of players involved, from older boys down to 16-year-olds.
“The future looks good for the club because there’s a conveyer belt of talent coming through.
“For me now it’s about getting the right mix in the squad.”
As well as the challenge of playing away from home every week until their new pitch is finished, Thorn are also having to cope with chasing clubs with much bigger budgets.
Threave Rovers currently sit joint-top of Division Four alongside Kilsyth Athletic, with Paisley side St Peter’s joint-third with West Park and BSC Glasgow.
McLaughlin is more than up for the challenge, adding: “We want to be successful this year.
“We’re still at a bit of a disadvantage in having to play away from home every week, but hopefully our new pitch will be good to go by the end of October.
“Our main challenge is that there are teams in this league that pay wages and those that don’t.
“We’ve played Threave and they’ve signed boys from the Lowland League.
“There’s a lot of good teams in the division, but even though we lost to Threave we took a lot of confidence from the performance.
“We weren’t that far away from them and we’ve been undefeated since that loss.
“We’ve really kicked on from there.
“We’re away to Campbeltown this week, probably the longest away day you can get.
“We’ll be doing everything we can to make the trip worthwhile.”
