Managers Post Thistle

26/03/11 JM:- ""We knew that we were going to be in for a tough game, traditionally the games between us are always tight affairs.

Jim McIntyre felt that a draw was a fair result:-

"I have got to be honest. We had lots of pressure but our final ball, our decision making let us down. Thistle are a good side and we had a load of opportunities to get balls into the box but for some reason we dithered or hit the first man or chose to go back the way again. That was the frustrating part because we had plenty of bodies in the box. It was disappointing but their attitude and desire to keep going, keep getting forward was fantastic and I was delighted with them on that front."

Thistle had early chances that hit the woodwork but Macca maintained the Pars created good chances with good movement:-

"We knew that we were going to be in for a tough game, traditionally the games between us are always tight affairs. We can only worry about ourselves and what we never did well today as the final bit."

With Falkirk beating Raith Rovers Dunfermline moved to within a point of the league leaders but he was unwilling to look too far ahead:-

"Every week we talk about the twists and turns in this league and there are going to be many more."

Instead the Manager thanked the home support for getting behind the team:-

"I thought the crowd were excellent today; they got really behind us after asking them to give us good backing today and I thought they were far more vocal which was great."

Ian McCall considered a point from the game was the very least his side deserved:-

"We missed the best two chances of the game; Chris Erskine should have scored - he knows that himself - and Doolan's although it was a good header that hit the post, he should have scored. They battled on and Ryan McGowan who played a game and a half this week for Australia was really good. Fox made a couple of good saves as well.

"We had a lot of chances to cut them open and be more precise and didn't do that but we didn't give them many clear cut chances. We are pleased enough with the point..

"To go up to a team challenging to win the league and draw 0-0 is by no means a poor result and a draw was the very least that we deserved. The fact that there was nothing between the two teams underlines the fact that for the last five months or so we have been one of the top three teams in the league. As I've said before, I believe that we have the makings of a right good team here.

"Today, the one disappointing thing was that our flair players didn't perform as well as they have been doing but overall I thought that the players were terrific this afternoon. We made a wee change at half-time when we brought on Simon Donnelly for Martin Grehan. Martin did fine in the first half but we felt that we needed to make a wee change and that Simon could do with some game time.

"Ryan McGowan had another impressive 90 minutes. His loan is up soon and I will need to sit down with the Board about the possibility of extending it. I'm keen to do that, not least because we are in the position of having Bryan Hodge and Paul Paton out for the rest of the season and, possibly, Paul Cairney as well."