Managers Post East Fife

30/06/18: Link to audio of both managers post match comments

Allan Johnston felt that the friendly against East Fife was a typical pre season game.

“Usually the first one is played without a crowd and sometimes it is difficult when the boys are just getting going, used to playing competitive football again on a full sized pitch.

“It took us a wee while to get going. Obviously you can see that we have a lot of new players and it is going to take a bit of time for everybody to bed in. But it is about getting game time under their belts and hopefully sharpness for the first game of the season.”

The starting eleven included five new faces, how did the manager feel his new players performed?

“We can all do better. It wasn’t a classic game by any means. Obviously they were getting behind the ball and just making it difficult. It was a bit slow and deliberate at times and you could see when the game opened up a bit in the second half when we put the young boys on I thought some of them performed really well.

“It gave us a bit of a spark, there were some really good performances. I thought young Matty Todd in the middle of the park and Lewis McCann especially did really well.”

The two 17 year olds who joined from Fife Elite for this season provided the goals that secured the win and the manager commented:-

“I know that they are pre season games and you cannot really read too much into pre season games but it is always nice to win.”

Four injured players watched from the stand - Sean Murdoch, Tom Beadling, Craig Burt and Joe Thomson. The manager explained:-

“There are always wee niggles and wee knocks, we are not going to take any chances with anybody for a pre season friendly. There are obviously boys missing but I’m sure over the next few weeks we will have everybody back.

“We have some more to bring in, we are trying and hopefully one will come in at the start of the week and we are still looking for a couple more as well.”

The next pre season game will also be at Bayview but this time against Raith Rovers. AJ said to expect a similar format on Wednesday night.

“The boys will probably play a wee bit more, more game time and then some of the younger ones will come on after that again.”

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