News | Manager post Queen of the South

25/02/23: Link to audio of James McPake`s post match comments

`Delighted` was manager James McPake reaction to the 2-0 win over Queen of the South at Palmerston Park:-

`When I spoke through the week we knew that it was a tough place to come. Going back to my playing career it was always tough coming down here and even managing my previous club. We had a hard game down here with the same result earlier in the season and when Queen of the South came to KDM Group East End Park they were excellent that day, under different managership obviously then.

`I have enjoyed watching what Marvin (Bartley) has done, he is someone that I know pretty well and he has got them now building and playing out from the back. That did cause us a bit of problems today, so credit to them but on the balance of the game, we did deserve to win it.`

The opening goal was scored by Craig Wighton in 22 minutes?

`Yes, it took a deflection but Craig said that it was on target so it is certainly Craig`s goal. When we did get the ball down and move it quickly we looked efficient, we looked a threat. We maybe just didn`t do it enough but a lot of that was down to Queen of the South stopping us doing it.

`You can`t have it all ways, you have to grind it out at times. We did that, moved it about, we got our goal and Chris Mochrie was very unlucky from what have been a fantastic bit of play followed by a fantastic finish, albeit from one or two yards.

`At half time we had to address just a few wee things. We weren`t as aggressive on our press as we needed to be and we were allowing them to get the ball down. Second half it was different, we did get after them more aggressively. I don`t mean kicking them but we were sprinting, we were making the distances shorter and obviously the early goal helped. We were always chasing the second goal anyway.

`Deniz (Mehmet) didn`t have too much to do really. I think it was Hendrie`s shot was really unlucky when it went over the bar. Den had a great save in the first half, he has to but the really good save was the one he tipped around the post. Again it is another clean sheet for Den, it is an incredible record that he has got and hopefully we can add to that. The second goal helped and then we could control the tempo of the game which we did pretty well.`

You were able to bring Paul McGowan on for his Dunfermline debut and used four subs in total?

`I was very close to using five! We were conscious of the fact that we had made one so early (55 minutes) when we got Paul on so after the second substitutions we only had one more to go. By that point in the game we were pretty good control of the game so somebody did miss out on the chance to come on.

`It is great, look there will be people disappointed - it shows the desire to play but for example Joe (Chalmers) was a sub last week and Hammy (Chris Hamilton) started. It was role reversal this week and attitude wise great.

`We have a benefit now in having a decent squad now in terms of numbers. We had two left out today who we purposely brought down here because they had trained excellently all week in Andrew Tod and Miller Fenton. We could have left them at home but they are as big a part of the squad as anyone. It was important that we got them down here for the togetherness.

`Paul was good when he came on. He will tell you that he was hopeless but I know the standards that he has got. If he gives the ball away once he was rubbish, if he gives it away more than once it was hopeless. I think it was twice with misplaced passes but you saw the calmness he brings to the game with he does come on and the knowledge. We will be patient with him, we will get him up to a level and he will be a good player for us.`

Related Stories