Manager's thoughts on narrow defeat to Dalkeith Thistle

A frustrating day at the Whitestone Park office.

Today was a real challenging one to analyse come full time. After losing a goal with just over a minute on the clock I looked over at Brogie and muttered, these are in the top three for a reason. It was probably an uncharacteristic mistake from our defensive area and also the only real one we made in a game that I felt we had the better of the chances in. After that initial slow start we began to build a bit of momentum and on another day Joycey might’ve found himself with a ten minute hat trick. He was a constant thorn in the Dalkeith backline during the first forty five but maybe just lacking that little bit of luck we so desperately needed in the final third.

In the second half the instruction was to go out and deliver more of the same. We felt that a Rovers goal wouldn’t be too far away if we stuck to playing in our patterns. Disappointingly however we stopped doing what was working. Neither team really mustered anything clear cut and the battle became engulfed in the middle areas. Neither took the proverbial bull by the horns.

Dalkeith are a strong outfit however with a real direct style. I felt we stood up to it well and we could only really give our lads praise in the changing room afterwards. There wasn’t a great deal between the two sides and maybe on another day we come away with at least a point. We’ve been on a really positive run though so it’s important we bounce back next weekend and put a few wrongs right. The boys once again ran themselves into the ground today, we were just lacking that little bit of quality when it mattered.