Managers’ Post Partick
Friday, 26th Nov 202126/11/21: link to audio of John Hughes and Ian McCall’s post match comments
- - Listen to this John Hughes interview
Dunfermline manager John Hughes started off by defending his captain:-
“Graham Dorrans is everything that you would want at a football club. He gets us playing and if any of the young boys are watching him or in the team with him, the way he looks - he is as brave as a lion. That’s not a problem, these things happen. If you had seen him last week it was a masterclass and I thought it was a masterclass tonight as well just the way he looks after the ball.
“To put so much into a game and lose a goal like that is very disappointing. If you look at Partick Thistle there wasn’t much between the teams. Second half we got hemmed in a little bit but Partick Thistle are so many points in front of us and for us to come here and go toe to toe with them, we are not too far away.
“Even in defeat we can take the positives out of it. I have a right good bunch of boys who are disappointed in there. We are on a process and the process is next time we play Partick Thistle hopefully there will be a different result and we will see a better team.”
With positive announcements this week about Football Academy and training ground Dunfermline must be an exciting place to be?
“Yes it certainly is but as I have said, it is my job to make sure that we are winning football matches, getting the crowds back and make sure the place is always on the up and is positive. Tonight it wasn’t to be. The overhead conditions were the same for both teams, it wasn’t really conducive to good slick football but I felt the two teams tried to play good football and it was only going to take one goal to win it. Unfortunately for us it was Partick who got it.”
You have taken some time to come out, was it because of what you were talking to the players about?
“No it was nothing too much. I am just proud of them because it is a process that we are on. Defeat is part of the process. It has to make your determined to come back and next time we play them go again.
“There was a lot of good stuff. I’m trying to analyse the game as well and we are still on the first page in terms of the coaching and what the players expect. We need to get on that second page quick so that we are playing more football in the opposition’s half. Everything is just a little bit in front of them so that is the wingers getting up closer to big Lewis or if they are wide, the midfielders getting up.
“Listen we have been in two weeks and everything has been rosy in the garden and I’m talking about even the weather that we have had for training. It has all been fantastic. This is the first blip that we have had so I would say to the fans that I’m disappointed but determined to win. Every game I take part in I want to win and the boys know that.
“That is part of the process as well - we don’t get beat. They know that is not acceptable in terms of defeat but when they give it everything that they have got, you cannot say too much to them.”
Your players started like they were really up for the cup tie?
“I felt in the first twenty to twenty five minutes of the first half that we were the better team. Then again the same in the second half for the first twenty minutes. Then Partick came into it and we just lost our way a bit in terms of doing the right thing and looking after the ball.
“It is all the wee fundamentals that you do in football, winning your tackles, winning your headers and just knowing where it is going to stop, even that wee hook just to turn them.
“It is early stages right at this moment. I can say this to the fans, I’m really bitterly disappointed getting beat. Really, don’t make no mistake about that. The players know that is not acceptable, we want to win every game but I have said in many an interview, anybody that we play will know that they have been in a game.
“Partick are fourteen points ahead of us, they know that they have been in a game. There wasn’t much between the two teams.”
Do you hope Rhys Breen will be back in training next week?
“He trained yesterday. One day’s training was just a little too much. I’m hoping to get a practice match early in the week and get all these boys playing. I want to get a right good look at them. They train but there is nothing like playing so we will be working very very hard.”
- - Hear Ian McCall’s thoughts
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