SMITH EXCITED ABOUT CELTIC CHALLENGE

Looking ahead to tomorrow's clash at Celtic Park, Manager Alex Smith was hopeful that his men could garner something from the encounter: "We are faced with a formidable task. It is a challenge we have all been keenly anticipating and one we hope we can handle and extract a positive result from. Celtic have a tremendous record at home, yet on a couple occasions in the last two years we have managed to cause them some problems even though we couldn't threaten their supremacy. This time, our team is more experienced and hopefully wiser to deal with the task in hand. After having put so much into the first two games but only been rewarded with a solitary point, a good result tomorrow would give us all the greatest satisfaction."

With reference to the recent announcement of the Scottish international squads, Manager Alex Smith declared himself delighted with the continued inclusion of Gallacher and Thompson in Vogts's outfit and the call-up of McCunnie and Duff to Rainer Bonhoff's U-21s, and stated: "I would like to take this opportunity to wish Mr Bonhoff all the very best in his new position and I hope I left him plenty of promising young players he will enjoy working with as much as I, most certainly, did."