Jim Jefferies Post Brechin City

29/03/14: JJ - "probably the referee's performance helped get the crowd up and work in our favour ...

Jim Jefferies was much happier with his team's performance against Brechin City, describing it like comparing night and day:-

"They showed great determination. Brechin came like most teams are doing to try and get in about us and stop us playing, and thinking that is enough. I was very frustrated by some of the decisions that were flying about but the second half was much better."

Going in at 0-0 JJ said that he had this week left his assistant Neil McCann give the half time rant:-

"They came out in the second half, and apart from that one lapse for the goal after getting off to a good start, I think we dominated the second half. Their goalkeeper had two or three good saves while ours had very little to do at our end. You could see as the game went on that we just upped the tempo and ended up with the win.

"Their legs were having to work very hard to keep us out. Some of the moves that were getting in behind them must have been taking a lot out of them because wee Faiss (El Bakhtaoui) was on fire today. I thought Allan Smith was getting his second wind and started to run at them. That was when we got the penalty.

"There was a will and determination there today. We have played a lot of great football this year and when it comes to this time in the season you have to grind out results and battle because they are trying to stay out of a play off place for relegation. It is very close down there are as well. They are not going to make it easy, you could see that because they gave Rangers a tough game last week. They have a few experienced players in their side but that determination and will, and the desire that was all missing last week was there in abundance today and we thoroughly deserved that victory.

"I know you can say that it came late from a penalty but they can thank their goalkeeper for two or three saves including a great double stop from Faiss. He for me was outstanding; he set the tone and ran his heart out. It inspired a lot of us to pick it up from that. It was great to see wee Josh putting in that amount of effort considering what he has been through recently with toncillitis.

"We had to make a few changes today to the system. We went with three up front because we knew that they were going to play with three at the back.

"After going through them last week we congratulated them on a tremendous effort in the second half to show a will. It is a much better feeling winning and you can see that the crowd were always behind us because we were winning 50-50 balls, challenging for everything - probably the referee's performance helped get the crowd up and work in our favour.

"When Smithy went into that box and cut across him there was only two things the boy (Steven Jackson) could do and that was bring him down or let him go. We had designated Ross Millen today before the game to go and take it. He stuck it away great and it was a great result for us.

"You could see there's Stranraer and Ayr today - one draw and one lost - finding it hard because the teams at the bottom do not want to get dragged into that relegation (play off). That will put Brechin in amongst it now but at the end of the day we have to grind out results.

"That is us in the play offs. Now we probably need one more win because then there would only be four games left. One more win and you are asking all the teams to win all their games and they have each other to play so that is probably not going to happen.

"I was really pleased with them today after being annoyed and very disappointed last week with the application. Today it was back again which means that they have taken things on board this week and I didn't think that they wanted to be in at eight o'clock tomorrow morning to do a running session anyway. That is maybe what spurred them on.

"I said that it wasn't about winning, if they had drawn today I wouldn't have done it. I said 'as long as you give me the effort and the work rate that was missing last week'. We had to work them hard to prove a point and we said if they go out to play and not compete; you can make mistakes, have daft moments, things might not come off for you but one thing that you cannot do is go out there and not apply yourselves one hundred per cent. That is the least we can expect and we got that today while we didn't get it last week."

So what had been said at half time that made a difference?

"Neil gave them one or two home truths because I felt that Brechin were getting stuck into us a bit. People are starting to do that to stop us play. If they let us play we are great, good to watch and cause teams a lot of problems. I said to them that they had to learn a lesson. I was probably good cop this time coming in and telling that is what they are doing, you either accept it and struggle or you fight back and you show the same tenacity.

"If you win that battle then the ability will take over and that is exactly what happened in the second half because we had them constantly under pressure from the minute the second half started.

"They had one or two breakaways which was always going to happen but we concentrated, defended and made it difficult, getting blocks in and all the things that you have to do to try and win a football match. That was much better application and desire to win and we got the rewards at the end that we thoroughly deserved."