IRVINE Meadow and Kilwinning Rangers both suffered defeats in their first season friendlies.

Meadow boss Ross Wilson and Buffs counterpart Chris Strain both know they have work to do but are using the bounce games to assess the fitness of their respective squads.

The Irvine side on Saturday went down 5-2 away to Ashfield.

New signing Dan McKay, brother of Nottingham Forest star Barrie opened the scoring for the visitors before Lee Foggins equalised, making it 1-1 at half-time.

A poor second half from Meadow as home side go 5-1 up through goals from Barry Tulloch, Bill Stevenson, Steven Dymock and Foggins.

Substitute Ryan Begley headed home for Meadow to reduce the leeway and then had what looked like a goal disallowed for offside shortly after this.

Recent signing Ryan Carnwath was shown a straight red card for Meadow very late in the game. The players still gelling with a few still short of match fitness.

Wilson said afterwards: "Friendlies are being used to get the squad ready and I'm happy with the result in the sense it shows we still have work to do. All respect to the other teams but we will also use the Ardagh Cup games as friendlies. We are trying to make sure the team gels building up to the first league game of the season against Troon."

Buffs on Saturday lost 1-0 away to Stirling University and on Monday night went down 3-0 at home to Lowland League team BSC Glasgow.

Strain said: "The new signings all featured in the games and we had a lot of possession. In forward areas we looked strong so we can take positives from that. We made some mistakes defensively in the games and that is not good enough. But that is something we are looking to remedy in the next few weeks. We look forward to the Ardagh Cup and will be looking to improve on last season's showing."