John McGlynn: I see St Mirren's success as the benchmark for Falkirk

Falkirk manager John McGlynn believes this weekend’s opponents St Mirren are exactly the sort of club the Bairns should look to emulate on their return to the Premiership.

The sides meet at the Falkirk Stadium on Saturday in what is just the hosts’ fourth game back in the top flight after their Championship success last season.

McGlynn is aiming for much more than just survival this season, and wants long-term growth, seeing St Mirren as a perfect example of how it can be done.

“St Mirren are the benchmark as a football club for us,” he said. “They got promoted in 17/18 and they’ve been in the league ever since.

“In that time, they’ve been able to grow their football club. They’ve got a great youth system going, got their own training ground that’s been built up over the years as they’ve got more money.

“That’s where we want to b,e and enormous credit to everyone at St Mirren.

“And obviously, for the manager getting top six in the last few years, getting into Europe. He’s done an amazing job.

“It’s since getting promoted from the Championship in 2018, and that’s the situation we are in. If we can be in the Premiership seven years from now, then this football club will be in an amazing place.”

Looking specifically at this weekend’s game, McGlynn says the opposition also offers a chance to prove again that they can meet the standards needed to thrive in the Premiership.

“They are the benchmark, and they know how to win games,” he said.

“I look at how well St Mirren are doing and if we can mix it with teams like St Mirren, who just drew with Hibs, then we can mix it with everyone.

“Every game is a test for us right now in terms of reassuring ourselves that we are at this level and winning games does that.”

Falkirk have already had one morale-boosting win, defeating Aberdeen 1-0 in their last match. The World Cup qualifiers meant league action was put on hold, and McGlynn admits he would rather have been right back in action with his players on a high.

“It would have been nice to have kept playing, on the back of that result,” he said.

“We’ve only had three league games this season, and we have a game in hand on other teams. There’s a long way to go, and you do want to win your first game and get that out of the way. So it was a great opportunity for us against ten men for the whole second half, and the players went about their business well.

“There wasn’t a monkey on our back or anything like that, but nevertheless, we’ve got a team that’s used to winning and we wanted to get the first one as soon as possible and build on that.”