‘It was a bit naughty’ – Peterhead’s Paddy Boyle glad to be back so soon after clash with Raith stopper

Paddy Boyle is relieved to have avoided an extended spell on the sidelines after a facial injury.

The Peterhead left-back was caught by a late elbow from Raith Rovers stopper David McKay during the Blue Toon’s 2-1 loss at Stark’s Park on January 4.

McKay’s elbow forced a tooth through Boyle’s lip and the inside of his cheek was ripped.

After missing the 3-1 defeat to Falkirk on January 11 Boyle returned for last week’s win over Dumbarton and is set to feature tomorrow against Montrose at Links Park.

The 32-year-old said: “I’m all right, I’ve still got a big lump on the inside of my mouth but thankfully the damage was internal.

“Basically a tooth came right through my lip so I had a hole in my lip.

“Then my cheek was forced on to my teeth so I needed 11 internal stitches for that and then needed my lip patched up.

“It was a bit naughty and I don’t have much recollection of it. I didn’t even see it coming.

“The manager was unhappy about it and I can understand why. They’ve done a good job stitching me up so I’m pleased there’s no long-term damage.

“I felt I started the season quite well and then for a few weeks I felt myself and the team had a dip. But I feel I’ve been playing consistently this week so I’m glad to only be out for one game.

“Last season it was difficult because I was injured in pre-season and it took me a long time to get going. I was chasing fitness for a long time.”

After the win over Dumbarton, Boyle hopes Peterhead can make it two in a row against Montrose and increase the six-point gap between themselves and Forfar in ninth.

He said: “It was an important win because we need to pull clear of the bottom two spots.

“If we can do that then we can start to look up the table. If we can win this game it would put us in the hunt potentially to try to get near fourth.

“What we don’t want to do is end up in no man’s land and potentially being sucked down the table.

“We need to put a run of wins together, even if it’s a run of four or five games unbeaten and there are a couple of draws in there it would be fine.

“We’ve got to look to go on a good run after last week’s win and we want to move closer to fourth rather being in relegation trouble.

“Consistency has been a problem for us, but I think over the past couple of months, other than the Falkirk game a few weeks ago, we’ve been playing well.

“Sometimes we’ve lacked a cutting edge going forward or we’ve been slack defensively, which has cost us at times.

“We’ve put in some good performances this season and we haven’t got results. But that’s not a lot of good to us.

“Hopefully we can bring the result and the performance tomorrow and if we could win then it would set us up to go on a run.”