East Kilbride lacked intensity in Spartans defeat, says boss as League Two debut ends in humbling defeat
Mick Kennedy admits his side lacked intensity and a cutting edge against Spartans as their big bow in the Scottish Professional Football League turned into a damp squib.
The town was buzzing on Saturday as Kilby kicked off life in the SPFL, but the League Two title favourites were quickly brought back down to earth on their debut in a 3-1 defeat, with their visitors opening the scoring within eight minutes through ex-EK striker Cammy Russell.
Although EK hit back quickly with Keir Foster scoring eight minutes later to net the club's first-ever goal in the senior ranks, Mark Stowe grabbed a quick-fire double before half-time – pouncing on a terrible mix-up in defence involving goalkeeper Freddie Owens and netting a stunning strike from distance – to win the game.
Spartans were reduced to 10 men late on when Russell received a straight red card for a late challenge, but the game was gone by then.
And Kennedy said: 'It certainly wasn't the start we were looking for.
'We were fully prepared for how Spartans would set up and we worked on it all week, but the reality is we made too many simple mistakes and they hurt us. When a team comes to sit in and hit you on the break, that makes your job really difficult because they are really well-organised, have loads of legs and energy and they are really direct.
'The first two goals we give away are really poor. We give the ball away in a bad area for the first goal, the second goal is a calamity and the third goal is a really good finish from the boy Mark Stowe.
'We spoke about the importance of being patient, not allowing too many turnovers or getting caught in transition, but we just didn't have enough patience in our play and we ended up trying to force stuff, giving the ball away in silly areas and getting caught.
'We had no real cutting edge either.'
EK now travel to Elgin on Saturday looking for that first win and Kennedy isn't going to hit the panic button after one bad game.
He added: 'Before a ball was kicked, we had points in our head that we need to get to that will have us challenging for the league.
'I didn't expect us to go the league campaign unbeaten. I think 68 points won it last season and that is a lot of points dropped over the season, so I am not overly concerned.
'We will have weeks like this in this league because teams will be defensive against us and really well-organised.
'That is a bit of respect we've built up because of how we play, so we need to manage that situation a lot better and be more patient.'
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