Largs is notable for its beautiful beach, ice cream, and of course, its Viking history.
Derek McInnes will be hopeful that his Kilmarnock players can muster up some of that combative spirit the Vikings were so renowned for when they head to Aberdeen on Saturday.
To enable his side to train on grass ahead of the encounter at Pittodrie, Killie have booked out pitches for two days at the Inverclyde National Sports Training Centre.
It’s not a new tactic used by McInnes, nor the Ayrshire club. Last year, Killie trained on grass pitches prior to some of their away games during their run-in for the Championship title success. There have been occasions this season when training on grass has been organised too, although not for a while.
Get unlimited access to The Herald for only £2 for 2 months
👉 Click here to sign up for this offer
With a turn in the weather over recent weeks, McInnes feels it’s right for the Rugby Park club to try to spice things up in a bid to overturn their dismal away form in the North East this weekend, as they look to build on that impressive win over Hearts.
“I remember last year we had something similar,” the boss explained. “Our home form was really good after we came in and we weren’t quite getting the same outcomes away from home.
“There were a few more astroturf pitches in the Championship than in the Premiership, so it wasn’t the biggest factor.
READ MORE: Derek McInnes hails heroic Killie effort to hang in against Hearts
“But I remember we trained at Troon Juniors a couple of times before we played Ayr on a Friday night at Somerset and we won the game. We tried it a couple of times.
“Unfortunately, at this stage of the season, although everyone has their views on astroturf pitches, a lot of the grass pitches are in pretty poor condition at the minute and you don’t want it to be detrimental to the session, training on a really poor surface.
“But it’s the greater good. What do you do? Largs is normally pretty dry and has good surfaces. It can get pretty boggy and saturated and heavy pitches over the winter and we thought it was counter-productive over the past few weeks to go down there. But in this instance, we just feel it is incumbent on us to try something different.
“We are trying the preparation differently, the training different in terms of doing the two days in the early part of the week on grass rather than on a Thursday as well.
“But, ultimately, you can look at all different reasons and try to prepare the best, but it comes down to 3pm on a Saturday and, hopefully, we are good enough.”
He added: “I remember Geoff Brown when I was at St Johnstone. I fought tooth and nail to get an overnight stay when we played Ross County.
“I recall him saying: ‘So do you guarantee me a win if we stay up on Friday night’. I said: ‘I can’t guarantee anything, but I can guarantee we will have prepared better’.
“We went up and we drew the game. He said: ‘See, it doesn’t make a difference’.
“The following time I asked him, he said no and we went up and beat them, so who is right and who is wrong! But for me, it is just about the preparation.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here