ARTHURLIE boss Steve Kerrigan hailed his team’s character as they secured their status in the Super League Premier for another season.

Kerrigan’s side put Beith to the sword on Monday night, winning 2-0 at Dunterlie to bring their relegation battle to a successful conclusion.

Goals from Mark Blakey and Steven Tart sealed the win and Kerrigan summed up his feelings afterwards.

He said: “It was more relief than anything else. It’s never nice to be in that situation so late on in the season.

“We were in a situation which called for a bit of character and on Monday night that character was shown.

“It was an all-round good performance and the goalscorers – Mark Blakey and Steven Tart – probably had their best games since I’ve been here."

“I also felt a clean sheet was coming as defensively, we were excellent.”

Arthurlie complete their league season this weekend with a trip to Ayrshire to play Hurlford United.

And Kerrigan hopes to deal the Blair Park outfit a moral blow to their own title aspirations.

Kerrigan said: “We now go to Hurlford on Saturday and they are going for their own ambitions – to win the league.

“But we can go there with no pressure and they’ll know they need to keep winning to try to get close to Auchinleck Talbot."

“They’ll know we can go out and play with a bit of freedom.”

Kerrigan, meanwhile, will waste no time in attempting to bolster his squad for what he hopes will be a much stronger Arthurlie team next season.

He revealed: “We’ll be trying to recruit players and bring a certain quality to the squad.

“Staying up means we can work out our pre-season programme a bit earlier. We can now push on, 100 per cent.

“For the last five or six years this club has perennially fought of relegation. "Hopefully next year we can do better and avoid the same scenario (fighting relegation).”

Kick-off at Blair Park is 2pm on Saturday and a supporters' bus will leave the club at 1pm.