East Kilbride Thistle co-manager Alan Paterson received positive injury news in a friendly with Bellshill Athletic on Saturday - now a scan will determine further boosts.
The Jags faced Bellshill Athletic on Saturday and goals from Ronan Fox, Danny Hashim, Paul Smith and Adam Edgar sealed a comfortable 4-0 victory for EK.
Plenty of players were given vital minutes out on the park, including the returning Scott Hadden, who has missed all of the West of Scotland Football Conference C season with a knee injury.
Paterson was pleased with the valuable run-out his side got at Rockburn Park ahead of taking on Neilston in league action this weekend.
He said: “It was a good work-out and we managed to get a lot of boys 45 minutes. We used the squad and got boys up to speed.
"We had the return of Scott Hadden for the first time since pre-season when he did his knee.
“Hopefully he can be a big player for us in the run-in until the end of the season. He’s been a big player for East Kilbride Thistle in the past so hopefully he can be a big player for us.
“We managed to give a few of the U20s a chance as well. It was a worthwhile experience going into the game on Saturday. We were just going to be training on Saturday but they appealed for a fixture, so we thought about seeing how it went.
“It was good. We created a lot of chances and could have scored more. Bellshill are similar to us in terms of a rebuilding job and having to bring new players in. It was convincing.”
Thistle are aware that this weekend’s trip to Neilston will be a tough one. The Brig O’Lea side are pushing for a top three spot in Conference C and Paterson’s men are keen to move away from the bottom half.
They are being made to wait on the fitness of new signing Aaron Connolly, who signed for the club earlier this month. He was key in their 4-2 win over Ardrossan Winton Rovers, and Paterson hopes to have him for some of their remaining six matches.
He added: “They have aspirations of going up so they will be wanting to win their game at all costs.
“We have been a bit like a yo-yo. We have won one then we have lost a game. We know it’s going to be a hard task and the only real injury concerns we have is Jordan Hutchinson, then Aaron Connolly’s hamstring.
“We will find out this week what the extent of the problem is with that. He’s going to see a physio at Hampden so hopefully it’s a case of weeks rather than months.”
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