Gary Irvine urges his Forfar side to close out second spot

The club’s recent form has seen them overtake Annan and will go into their last game of the campaign with second-place in their grasp.

This will crucially give Forfar, should they stay there, home advantage in the second leg of the promotion play-offs against the Galabank side.

Boss Irvine is delighted with the way his side have forced themselves into their current position, helped by a magnificent 5-1 home win over Annan a couple of weeks back which was followed up by a 1-1 draw at champions Kelty Hearts on Saturday.

This weekend they’ll host Stenhousemuir level on 59 points with Annan, but with a much healthier goal difference.

A win will ensure second place but Irvine is taking absolutely nothing for granted against a Warriors side Forfar have yet to beat this season.

That in itself will act as motivation in the Station Park dressing room the manager says.

“It’s a difficult game for us because they are a team we’re yet to win against this season and they’ll be aware of that,” said the manager.

"That will be the focus and the drive for them but, equally, we’ll go in with the mindset that we need to correct that, get the win and the three points against a team we’ve still to beat.

"That would mean that, over the season, we’ve beaten every team in the division.

"You have to be like that in football, you have to give yourself targets and things to work towards, so it’s something that will be spoken about between me and the players.”

Forfar have ended the season on a real high, putting in some excellent performances when it mattered most.

Boss Irvine says the club’s current position is a reward for the effort of his squad.

"We’ve worked hard and have had some good results, albeit there’s the result at Edinburgh City amongst all of that,” added the manager.

"It’s credit to the players that we got ourselves back up to second place on Saturday and we need to take that into the last game against Stenhousemuir now to make sure we stay there.

"That will concrete second place and take us into the play-offs.

"The Annan performance was really good, especially in the first-half.

"It’s probably up there with the best we’ve played this season, we scored some really good goals.

"The way the game went at Kelty, it turned out to be a really good point in the end with us only having 10 players after Stefan (McCluskey) was sent-off.

"We managed to hold on to the point.

"At 11 v 11 I thought we were the better team but got caught out by a set-play.

"It was always looking like us who were going to score from open play.

"But to still come away with a point from a really hard place down at Kelty, who were pushing really hard to make it a perfect day, the boys did really well.

"I was delighted with that so it’s credit to them.”

Kick-off this weekend at Station Park for the important tie is 3pm.