Craig Harrison, the boss of Welsh side The New Saints, has shown just how seriously he is taking Saturday’s Irn-Bru Cup clash at Forfar with the manager recently travelling to Scotland on a spying mission to see the Loons in action.
The 38-year-old former Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace player came up with his assistant Scott Ruscoe to take in the Angus side’s game at Clyde on September 24 with Forfar winning the match 1-0.
The New Saints will start this weekend’s historic game at Station Park as firm favourites but Harrison insists he and his players will be taking nothing for granted against Gary Bollan’s League 2 outfit.
Harrison said: “We feel very privileged to be in the competition and we’re really looking forward to representing the Dafabet Welsh Premier League and Wales in general.
“Myself and Scott Ruscoe went up to Scotland on the Saturday before the Carmarthen game to watch Forfar, so we’ve taken our notes and worked on a game plan.
“It’ll be a tough game, no matter what anyone says because they’ve made a fantastic start to the league.
“They lost their first game on Saturday in eight games, so we’re going there with the same attitude as usual, to win the match but we’ll have to fight for it and hopefully we can do enough to get through to the next round.”
The Loons will be looking for a big response against TNS following last weekend’s disappointing derby defeat to Angus rivals Montrose but they will have their work cut out if they hope to progress in the cup.
TNS sit top of the Welsh Premier League at the moment having a perfect 10 out of 10 winning record and the bookies have made them odds-on favourites to extend their run of victories against Forfar.
The Welsh club, which was formed in 2003 following a merger between Total Network Solutions and Oswestry Town, have been their country’s Champion side for six of the last seven seasons.
They are also no strangers to European football and in recent years they have gone toe to toe with the likes of Anderlecht, Legia Warsaw, CSKA Sofia and Helsingborg and Videoton.
Harrison has been in charge since 2011, with the 38-year-old also the club’s director of football.
TNS have a few players with Scottish connections including Wes Fletcher who played for Motherwell, Jon Routledge who was formerly at Hamilton and Dumbarton and Steven Saunders who was capped for Scotland and also played for Motherwell, Ross County and Dumbarton.
The main danger man for the Welsh side is New Zealand international striker Greg Draper with the prolific front man netting a hat-trick last weekend against Aberystwyth Town.
