Peterhead’s Simon Ferry is set to feature against Raith Rovers on Saturday – ending a run of missing games on artificial pitches.
The Blue Toon midfielder suffered back problems during the 2016-17 season as a result of playing on synthetic surfaces.
Over the past two campaigns, manager Jim McInally has rested Ferry when the Buchan outfit have played at grounds with plastic parks.
However, that is set to change when Peterhead visit Stark’s Park on League One business this weekend.
The Blue Toon train at Forfar’s Station Park – one of seven artificial pitches in the division – and Ferry hasn’t suffered any ill effects from training. Now the 31-year-old is set to line up in a game.
McInally said: “I’m looking at playing Simon as long as he has no reaction from our training last night.
“He’s been training fine on the artificial pitch at Forfar and has had no reaction.
“It’s come to the stage where we think we need to try him in a game and see how he gets on.
“We think with the experience he has and how Simon looks after himself that we should be able to manage him which will allow him to feature.”
Ferry is a hugely important player for McInally and with the step up to League One this season the Balmoor boss feels it’s important to have him available as much as possible.
He added: “Simon is a massive player for us and in League One there is no mercy in terms of the difficulty of games we face every week.
“There might be a reaction from playing which means the decision backfires on us – but we think we need to try it.
“Simon is always desperate to play so hopefully it goes well.”