Neilston boss Derek Carson has revealed preparations for next season are well underway with a number of key players already signed up for the 2019/20 campaign.

The Farmer’s Boys have six matches remaining as they look to continue their climb up the West Region Championship but Carson, along with co-manager Chris Cameron, is already looking ahead with captain Allan Diack, Cammy Haddow, Dylan Fletcher and former Johnstone Burgh captain Scott Robson all tied down for a crack at promotion next season.

“We’ve been working hard over the last few weeks to sign a few of the guys up for next season,” Carson told Barrhead Sport. “After that, it’s a case of waiting until the end of the season to look at players from other clubs who could come in and bolster our squad.

“At the moment we’ve confirmed a good few of the boys which is a real bonus at this stage. Our captain Allan Diack signed up as well as Cammy, Dylan and Scott.”

Carson continued: “Scott has done really well since coming in from Johnstone Burgh midway through the season. He’s really enjoyed it here and was buzzing to sign up for the full season.

Barrhead News: Scott Robson captaining Johnstone Burgh at the beginning of the seasonScott Robson captaining Johnstone Burgh at the beginning of the season

“That’s exactly what we’re looking for. We want people who are happy to be here. We’re telling the boys that we’re not in the league to make up the numbers next season, so it’s important they all buy into that.”

Frustratingly, Neilston weren’t in action at the weekend as they missed out on the chance to build on last week’s 4-0 win over play-off chasing Cumbernauld.

And while Carson was disappointed to miss out on that opportunity, he did use the time off to do some homework on Darvel and St Roch’s - his side’s next two opponents.

He added: “It wasn’t ideal to have a free weekend after the Cumbernauld result but at the same time it gave us a chance to go down and watch Darvel v St Roch’s. 

“We’ll be playing both of them in the run-in so it was good to kill two birds with one stone - we actually didn’t know much about Darvel prior to watching them so that was a bit of a bonus for us.

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“We know we have 18 points to play for in the final six matches now so we’ve told all the boys to treat it as a mini league to try and accumulate as many points as we can, finish as high up as we can and then take stock on a positive season.

“The first goal when we took over was to stay in the league and we’ve done that. Our next goal was to finish as high up the table as possible and at this stage we’re still in with a right good chance of moving up a few places.

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“We’ll also be making some changes in the final matches to get some guys more game time.”