Published: Thursday, 4th February, 2010 11:44am

Greens ready for cup scrap

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Liam McIntyre

HELENSBURGH coach Liam McIntyre believes that Saturday's cup challenge against Kilmarnock is just what his team needs to prove they have what it takes to compete with the big boys.

The Greens go into their Scottish Hydro National Shield match with the Ayrshire side a massive 15 places above them in the leagues - but the coach is still confident of causing an upset.

And McIntyre, who has now been in charge for two seasons, is hopeful that a confidence boosting victory in front of a vocal home support will be the catalyst to the rest of their season.

He told Sport Scene: "With Helensburgh, it's unfortunately one of those things that you don't know what sort of team you are going to have until a Thursday night.

"But as far as I'm aware I should have a strong team to play against Kilmarnock.

"It will be a massive challenge for us because getting to National Two is our goal.

"We want to make it there in the near future, and what better way to prove ourselves than to play a team above us and see how we fair against them.

"Since I took over a couple of years ago I think we have come a long way.

"It will be interesting to see how we do on Saturday because they will be a big side.

"And when you play teams higher up the divisions the skill level improves and the game gets faster, but both me and the players are looking forward to the challenge."

Helensburgh are currently seventh in National League Division Three and when they return to league duty on February 13 will welcome table toppers Aberdeenshire to Ardencaple.

The team from the Granite City have only lost three times this season and the Greens took a battering from them in September, in just the second match of the season, going down 48-0.

But McIntyre is sure that his charges have learned from their mistakes and wants to put on a good performance to prove that they are good enough to challenge for promotion next season.

He said: "Aberdeenshire will be very strong coming down here because they have a very good pool of players to call upon.

"I would like to think that on our home turf my players will have the attitude to have a right good go at them to make sure that we come away with something.

"Our performance up there was sub-standard so we want to be better to make up for that."

He added: "Last season towards the end we played the top four teams in the last four games and beat them all very well and played some great rugby.

"So I thought that this year we would have a really good chance of promotion and make a real impact on the division.

"But with the SRU changing the laws again to allow full scrummaging it has made a huge difference to us.

"We don't really have any big bruisers and we have simply been overpowered by some of the sides we have played.

"But as long as this team sticks together they will get a promotion in the next few seasons.

"Our average age is 22 and they are a great bunch of boys who will only get better.

"A lot of our 18 and 19-year-olds grew up watching guys like David Calderwood, Matthew Scott and David Riding playing, so having these guys still involved is great.

"It's brilliant for them to play alongside them and David's old head has helped at times because he reads the game so well."

Weather permitting, Helensburgh's match against Kilmarnock will kick-off at 2.30pm (to allow for extra time if necessary) on Saturday at Ardencaple.