Summer signing Thomas Reilly reckons it was a no brainer for him to link up with Jim Weir again at Forfar Athletic.
The former Elgin City midfielder worked with Weir at Borough Briggs and feels the squad Weir has built is impressive.
Reilly, 23, expressed his delight to move to Station Park and hopes they can carry their end of season form into the 2018-2019 season.
“I’m delighted to join the club, last season the club were up and down but finished the season well, so hopefully we can carry that for into the new season. We’ve added some good players like Gary Fraser and John Baird; you just need to say their name and everybody knows them, the fact everybody knows them proves that they’re a decent player and they could definitely play at a better level than League One. We’ve got no excuses to not be competing with every team in the league with the calibre of player we’ve got.”
Ex-St Mirren man Reilly, spent three seasons at Elgin, netting 11 goals in 119 appearances but explained it was an easy decision to ply his trade under Weir once again.
“I spoke to Jim about the possibility of moving to Forfar because he got me enjoying my football again after leaving St Mirren when he took me to Elgin, and with the players he was bringing in, it was an easy decision to make that I wanted to play my football here.”
Forfar opened their pre-season schedule with a 1-0 win over Championship side Ayr United as Jamie Bain’s lob was the difference between the sides and the midfielder praised his teammates’ performance against a tough side.
“It was a tough game, Ayr are a really good side, we knew it was going to be hard, but I thought we played well and grew into the game. The longer the game went on, I thought we looked more comfortable.”
“After the first water break, we got together and John and Barry changed a couple of things which helped improve the performance. Jamie scored a great goal, it was fit to win any game, whether it’s a friendly or not. We want to get that mentality in early doors and the earlier you get that the better.”
Reilly showed that he wants to take a winning mentality into the competitive season and hopes the side can show their potential in the Betfred Cup group fixtures against Falkirk, East Fife, Montrose and St Johnstone.
“The League Cup draw is tough, but we’ve got to go and try to win these games, we know they’re difficult games but Ayr are a tough side and we’ve just beat them, whether it’s a friendly or not.”
“We know they’ll be tough games but we can’t go into they’re just thinking ‘Oh we’ll just work on fitness’, because it’s not about that, myself and the boys in that dressing room want to go and win every game, but if you go into the cup not being bothered about winning the games, you’re going to go into the league the same way. We want to start the league the right way and if we start the cup that way, we’ll hopefully take that into the league.”
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