From Spills to Thrills

“I scored one here when I was at Thistle and this one was a little bit closer and the wall was huge.

If Dunfermline are successful in avoiding the play offs this season the impact of two substitutes will be remembered and talked about for a long time to come. The match at home to eighth placed Ayr United was heading towards a disastrous defeat when goals by Reece Cole and Nikolay Todorov turned the match on its head.

Reece Cole had been introduced as a 69th minute replacement for Joe Chalmers and within 10 minutes he has scored an equaliser that relit East End Park. Kevin O’Hara made way for Nikolay Todorov in 84th minute and within two minutes he had netted what proved to be the decisive winner.

It has taken until the 34th league match in the season for Reece Cole to open his goal account but he was able to draw on past experience with Partick Thistle when it comes to scoring from free kicks at East End. He told the website:-

“It probably couldn’t have come at a better time, to get your first goal for the club. I am just happy to get the goal that kick started getting the three points. It was a good feeling. I scored one here when I was at Thistle and this one was a little bit closer and the wall was huge. I thought that I cannot go over the wall here so just put it on the keeper’s side. I think it got a little deflection but I will not dwell on that too much. It is probably because I hit it with quite a bit of pace that it got past him, we are just buzzing to get the goal.”

The match had not been going well for the hosts and manager John Hughes made four substitutions starting with Lewis McCann at half time. That then involved playing with a funny shape, Efe Ambrose in defence flanked by two attacking wing backs, as that something to spark the comeback was sought. Reece explained:-

“It was make shift shape after Coll Donaldson had gone off at half time. We probably didn’t have the best ten minutes coming into the second half. As everyone knows subs impact games and the two subs scored so it is a good feeling for both of us.”

The manager has always said that those starting matches on the subs bench could have a big say in the ultimate success or otherwise of the season:-

“Everyone has their part to play and the manager has reiterated that throughout the squad. Everyone knows that when you go out on the pitch, you have to be ready and have to take your chance when it comes.

“As the gaffer says we don’t want it easy, we want it the hard way and we have shown that on Saturday to come out at 1-0 down, get the two goals and three points is only a positive.

“You couldn’t have written it. It is good for the neutrals but not so good for us. We have two games left, all that we are looking for is getting six points out of the last two games.

“We go into next week full of confidence. I know that we are a little bit up and down in the last couple of weeks but we will go and put in a performance and hopefully get the three points.”

Partick Thistle will have a big say in the fight to avoid the play offs and as a player who made 25 appearances for the Jags in the shortened 2019-2020 season, the 24 year old predicted next Saturday’s fixture at Firhill is going to be an interesting one and was sure whose side he was on:-

“I’m a Dunfermline player and I want to keep this club up. If I get the opportunity to play then that is all going to be my focus.”

This was just the twelfth game for Reece in the black and white of Dunfermline and only four have these have been starts. He considers himself a bit of a free kick specialist and he admitted:-

“I have not had many opportunities but football goes like that sometimes. Things might not work out but when I went out on the pitch on Saturday, I was there to do a job. I’d like to say that I did my job.

“At the end of every warm up I hit a couple of free kicks. Usually they go flying into the stand and knock someone’s coffee out of their hand. I practiced them on Saturday, they went into the stand!”

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