Time to make experience tell
Thursday, 31st Mar 2022Joe Chalmers - “Career experiences can be used to help those who maybe haven’t been in these kind of situations before.
Dunfermline midfielder Joe Chalmers says that training has been good so far this week and the players just need to use the extra time to get their sharpness back and be ready to come out of the traps for the game against Raith Rovers next week.
With Rovers involved in the final of the SPFL Trust Trophy on Sunday, the derby match has been moved back to Wednesday 6th April and that has given the Pars valuable time to prepare for what is a very important home game. The players were given this Wednesday and Thursday off but will train on Friday and Saturday this week before returning on Monday and Tuesday to finalise their plans and get back into the best shape. Speaking exclusively to this website Joe reflected:-
“The Partick Thistle game was a high, it was a really good performance with four goals but we went up to Inverness on Saturday and didn’t pick up from that performance. Maybe the effort during the week caught up on us a bit, we didn’t quite seem to have the same spark and energy.”
The team was desperately disappointed with the match in Inverness especially with so many with recent connections to Caley Thistle. The changing room after the game was described by Joe as flat:-
“To go all the way up there, to leave with nothing was not great and made the journey back home very quiet. We have a few and the manager who have been at Inverness but you try and put that at the back of your head and try and treat it like a normal game. We knew a few boys up there so obviously you want to get one over them so it was a disappointing afternoon all round.”
Inverness had certainly absorbed the Pars recent two televised matches and didn’t make the fixture easy for their visitors. After a reasonable start by the Fifers, Caley Thistle did not allow their opponents to get any rhythm going forward. Joe continued:-
“They were breaking down our final ball, we didn’t really create much it was just a struggle going forward. After they scored their first we had a ten minute spell where we created some pretty good chances and that was the time where we had to take one of them. If we had taken one it would have given us a lift and you could have seen something different but it just wasn’t to be. Inverness are a good team they had a game plan to stop us and they did that.”
Twenty eight year old Joe has played every minute of every Dunfermline match since he joined from Ayr United on 24th January this year. Those nine games have brought two wins, three defeats and four draws but he feels that performances probably merited better:-
“Personally I am loving it. I am really enjoying my football but the results have been a bit inconsistent. In amongst them there have been a lot of good performances and two or three of those draws should have been wins. That is the disappointing thing, that would have made a big difference.
“The style of football and the way the manager wants to play that is the way that I enjoy playing. I want to play in a team where that is the way they are trying to play. Obviously results are the most important thing and we need to win as many of the five remaining games as we can.”
On joining Joe confessed that he was looking forward to working under John Hughes for the first time and he claimed that it has been just what he expected:-
“The style of football is exactly what I thought it would be - passing the ball, moving it and once we lose it trying to get it back. About the place there is never a dull moment to be honest, he has so much passion and energy for the game it is unbelievable. Every single day and every single training session it is pure passion from the manager. That comes across to the team as well so I really enjoy training every day.”
The move to Dunfermline has re-united Joe with several players he has played alongside in the past and that has been a bonus. He attended the same school and was at Motherwell with Dom Thomas:-
“It has been good to be back at a club with Dom. We have been pals for years and he is still as funny as ever. He is another one who every day is always up for a laugh. I am good pals with big Coll Donaldson from my days at Inverness and Liam Polworth from there too, so it has been really good to be back in amongst boys like that. We have good memories and if we can have a good end to the season by us keeping Dunfermline in the league then we will all have more good memories. That is what we are all trying to achieve.”
Further back in his career, while only 18, Joe Chalmers made his debut start for Celtic in the same team as Efe Ambrose and the 28 year old had nothing but good to say about the 47 times capped Nigerian centre back:-
“Efe is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet in football, he was back then and he still is. He would always come up to me after games before but see him coming in at Dunfermline and it is really good to be back playing together again. We get on really well.”
While Efe went on to make 169 appearances for the Hoops, but back in season 2012-2013 Joe’s record at Celtic halted at three. He admitted that it was painful to leave a club he supported and had been with from the age of ten:-
“It was difficult. I had so many friends there and all the staff. That was the difficult side, but from the football side it was the right thing to do. I was a Celtic fan and was enjoying it. I probably didn’t appreciate making my appearances at the time because I wanted to be doing it every week. Now when I look back at it I am proud of it, it is probably my best memory in football.”
Joe went out on loan to Falkirk before, in June 2015, he left Celtic for Motherwell. There he would make 31 appearances followed by 96 appearances for Inverness and 20 for Ross County. Mark Kerr took Joe to Ayr United in October 2020 and he made 50 appearances for the Honest Men. Joe Chalmers also represented Scotland at under-16, under-17, under-19, under-20 and under-21 levels and he hopes to draw on all those experiences to help Dunfermline through five remaining league games:-
“I have played in different types of games whether it is the top of the leagues where you are under pressure to keep winning or teams at the bottom and you know what you need to do. When you are in these situations experience helps you. Career experiences can be used to help those who maybe haven’t been in these kind of situations before.
“I have plenty of experience to draw on, it is just about trying to use that in the right way. That will help me in the next five games and I will try and use that to help other boys.”
The one thing that is noticeable with every player who steps forward to be interviewed is the confidence that they possess. Joe senses that confidence comes from the games that they haven’t won:-
“In a lot of those games we have had spells where we thought that we could win every game. It is not as though that we are a team down at the bottom of the league that is getting beaten heavily every week and sitting worrying where our next win is coming from. We have not got that feeling, we feel as if we are in every game and if we are at it and we turn up, then we have a chance. That’s why you see we have got that confidence but it is down to the last five games, we are second bottom so we need to start producing.”
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