Stuart Kettlewell insists he will never discourage Ross County’s squad from playing through the pain barrier to help their cause.

The Staggies have had their first wave of injuries in recent weeks, albeit with very few long-term issues.

Several players have taken knocks or had niggling problems, with Lewis Strapp the latest afflicted after being forced off with a dislocated shoulder against Hamilton on Tuesday night.

Although Kettlewell was pessimistic after that match about Strapp’s chances of featuring this weekend, he is not ruling out the summer arrival from Airdrieonians featuring in the squad down at East Kilbride.

The alternative option would be Josh Reid, who played a key role in County’s goal against Hamilton on Tuesday just minutes after being sent on.

Kettlewell, though, insists the quality of an alternative does not factor into his thinking when deciding whether to ease someone like Strapp back into the side in case it encourages bad habits.

“He has a chance to be involved on Saturday, we just need to see how that goes over the next 24 hours before we make that decision,” Kettlewell said of Strapp’s availability.

“I mentioned it at the time, I thought Josh Reid came on and had a really positive impact for us on Tuesday. I didn’t think Lewis had a chance for Saturday on Tuesday night, but it looks to have settled a wee bit.

“With his character, if someone was going to pitch themselves in to play, I’m fairly certain it would be Lewis.

“For me, in football it’s too easy to miss things and have a day off, miss this game and catch another one.

“My thought process has always been to not miss a training session or a game, and I managed to achieve that as a player on a couple of occasions.

“The players I played with all thought the same way. Everyone wanted to complete 100 per cent of training sessions and complete every single game of football. You can’t always do that, it’s really difficult, but if we encourage that mindset things can happen.

“I always say that you can’t put your hand up to be the hero then start moaning about it. If you’re putting your hand up, you better be doing everything you can to do the task at hand.

“If I discourage people wanting to play, it brings about a culture where it’s too easy to miss too much within the game, which I don’t like.”

County won 4-0 when East Kilbride travelled north to Dingwall earlier this season, but Kettlewell anticipates a different challenge on the K-Park Training Academy surface.

One thing the Staggies boss does not expect to differ is how East Kilbride will approach the game, in contrast to some of their League One rivals in recent weeks.

“We’ve seen a couple of times that teams do things slightly differently against us than they have the game before, so we always need to be braced for that,” Kettlewell added.

“East Kilbride don’t really change though. They have their way they want to play, and they will try to impose that on us.

“Montrose changed to a back five, Queen of the South moved to a back five, but I don’t see that being the case at all against East Kilbride. They will continue to play the way they do, which brings a lot of challenges.

“Even when we won in Dingwall, we saw a lot of good stuff in them, and now we’re playing them away from home after a demanding, gruelling game on Tuesday night.

“We have played Montrose, Airdrie, Hamilton and now East Kilbride – and the table tells you those are the top teams in the league.

“Having that run as consecutive games makes it a challenge, but one that we relish and look forward to. To this point, I think we have acquitted ourselves pretty well, and we want to replicate that on Saturday as well.”