Scully can’t save below Par performance

“It was down to mistakes on our behalf and that is why we lost the game.”

Dropping below their own standards was the assessment of the Dunfermline Athletic goalkeeper Ryan Scully after the 2-0 home defeat by Dundee United. He said:-

“We have set our standards this season, I think we dropped well below them in the first half especially. Unforced errors by us and if you give that to a quality team like Dundee United then they are going to take their chances.

“I thought they won every second ball and it is one of the games you look at and say that you have no complaints about getting beat.

“Obviously we dropped points against Dundee and Queen of the South but they were games that we thought we should have had more from but I don’t think we could say that about today.”

Ryan would not single out any one reason for Dunfermline extending their run of league games without a win to eleven:-

“It is a knock on effect from everything. A few slack passes here and there. You might put it towards the Celtic game. Obviously there were a lot of emotions going on last week, a lot of distance covered as well in the game. I don’t know if that’s a knock on effect and why boys felt a wee bit leggy or not but that is no excuse, it was down to mistakes on our behalf and that is why we lost the game.”

That run of league results coincides with Ryan’s last league shut out which was in the 1-0 success at Alloa in March. The 26 year old who joined from Morton in January went 487 minutes without conceding until Peter Pawlett scored against him on 16th March. On Saturday he was disappointed to lose two goals but he did save a penalty and got a touch on a Shankland cross to deny Pawlett what looked likely to be a tap in.

“It is unfortunate, the first one Shankland hit it at pace and it just went through the legs. The second one I think I saved it and then as I came down it has hit off my back and went in but that is what Shankland does.

“He gets on those headers, he gets goals and that is what he has done for the last couple of years or so. Fair play to him but we should have dealt with him a wee bit better since he was the danger man. Again disappointment on our behalf.”

Saving a 76th minute penalty was a bonus for the keeper but in the end it merely limited the margin of the defeat:-

“I have not saved too many to be fair so it would have been better if it had helped get points for the team. It is just the disappointment with the overall performance.”

As for the Pawlett chance Ryan added:-

“Yes, I think he looked at it in a bit of disbelief but I managed to get a slight fingertip to it just to put him off a wee bit. I’m sure that he won’t want to look back on it but at the end of the day they got three points so I don’t think he will care too much.”

The keeper agreed that finding themselves with two points and in eighth place after the opening three league matches gives the team a wake up call ahead of their visit to Arbroath on Saturday:-

“We knew that we dropped well below our standards. I don’t think that you can look at the games that we have played so far and say that there have been too many of them.

“I know it is still early in the season but we have only two points out of three games which is disappointing on our behalf. We should have a lot more than that. We need to dust ourselves down, analyse what went wrong and have a good week’s training and really go for it and get the three points against Arbroath.”

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