Williamson scores
Wednesday, 19th Jul 2017It may not feature in the scoring records but Ryan`s effort certainly counted since the shoot out was in sudden death
There was a bit of dressing room banter with the boys following Tuesday night`s Betfred Cup match and much of it was directed at the Pars right back. The reason for Ryan Williamson to be singled out was because, for him, the feeling of scoring a goal was a new experience.
Having made 67 appearances for Dunfermline without putting the ball in the net, Ryan`s first question to the website was "I am allowed to count that as my first goal?"
The 21 year old was not one of the original five designated to take penalties when the match ended 0-0 after 90 minutes. The shoot out was tied at 7-7 after all fourteen of the first spot kick takers successfully scored but the whole squad had practiced penalties on Monday. Ryan said he just took a look along the line to see who was going to step up.
"I thought I`d better get it out of the way, so here goes. I was confident and luckily I stuck it away. We all took one penalty each after Monday`s training session, I scored with that so I just went the same way. Stick to what you know."
It may not feature in the scoring records but Ryan`s effort certainly counted since the shoot out was in sudden death and it wasn`t until the East Fife central defender Ben Gordon hit his penalty on to the left goalpost that the outcome was decided. Ryan continued:-
"It was good to win on penalties but it would have been better to get the win to top it all off."
The match against East Fife was a much sterner test than that against Elgin City on Saturday, Ryan credited the hosts:-
"In the first half we didn`t move the ball quickly enough, we were probably a bit too sloppy on the ball as well while they worked very hard, especially in the second half when I thought they played a lot better. They made it so hard to break them down, they got bodies behind the ball but we moved the ball quicker and made better use of the ball but we couldn`t couldn`t quite break them down in that final third to get that chance that we needed."
It was one way traffic for most of the second half but East Fife did get the odd chance near the end. Ryan admitted that was a danger:-
"Towards the end they had one or two shots and I said `surely not` after all that possession that we had had and all our hard work.
"They got players behind the ball and we just couldn`t break them down. That is something that we need to look at in training before Saturday."
Saturday`s visitors in the third match of the Betfred Cup will be Peterhead and although Ryan expects it to be a tough and physical encounter, he is mindful that it is what Dunfermline does that is all important:-
"We will be back in training on Thursday and Friday so it is up to us to make sure that we are ready to go again on Saturday and hopefully get the three points."
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