Manager on Thursday

22/03/12: JJ - "You forget how much you miss it. I am looking forward to it very much."

Jim Jefferies discussed how the first day of training had gone:-

"We arranged what we were going to do and I discussed with Gerry what I wanted to happen. We did a bit of the possession side with what I expect to see in a game situation. We only had 15 players training which was not enough for a practice match, which I would have liked but it gave me a chance to look at the players.

"Obviously I know a bit about some players but not about others. I observed a bit today and get my thoughts for Saturday.  I've not got a lot of time before Saturday so I will have to rely heavily on Gerry in terms of who has been doing well lately, who has not been doing well and give me thoughts on their strengths and weaknesses and pick up what I can myself through watching it. It was very useful.

"Every day, every session from now on I will have to put my stamp on and routines will change for some of them. I've got experience of what I think is the right way so we will work together and try and make it better."

The new manager's first impression was that the players were prepared to work hard:-

"Sometimes it's great people give you praise if you work hard, but sometimes you have to work harder if you do the wrong things. So you try to make sure that they do the right things. If you give the ball away its hard work to go and chase it back, so it's a lot easier to keep the ball and use less energy. I don't think effort or hard work is a problem, it's just decision making, making sure they are switched on, focussed and concentrated.

"As I said yesterday at the Press Conference, they have come up from the First Division a lot of them, some players like Mark Kerr has played in the Premier Division and he knows what it is about.  You can see that in training, he's been at a decent level, but when you come up you get punished for mistakes that you might get away with in the lower league. You have to double your concentration and everything to make it harder for teams because the one thing you can't afford to do is give goals away, cheaply or easily because other teams don't. That is what they are finding."

These problems were identified by the previous manager as well, so how would Jim Jefferies do things differently in order to fix it?

"That's the million dollar question. You fix it because you have to keep at them. The easy way is that you give up and change the players and get players in who can do that, but you can't do that.  You don't have the facility because the window is closed and you haven't got the resources to do that. You just have to keep at them, maybe a change of voice

"It may be tweaking one or two things. You have to lay the message down. As I said to them yesterday, football cup finals are descriptions that are used for massive matches. There are eight games left; it is not ideal - I would have loved to come into the Club when the Manager has moved on to a bigger job and inherited a team in mid league with a good squad and confidence. This is the other end of the scale."

The fact that Jim had experience of similar situations is one of the reasons that he was engaged by the Pars:-

"I had all that with Falkirk, at Kilmarnock we had good years and bad years. Dunfermline will have that too, provincial clubs always do. What we do is stress to the players just what is at stake here. You have worked extremely hard to get into this league, it is harder to stay there so you need to make sure that the mistakes are cut out. We are getting to crunch time now."

Jim had questioned himself in the days up to taking on the job but after day one he went home to his wife with a real buzz:-

"You forget how much you miss it. I am looking forward to it very much."

Jim Jefferies accepts that it is going to be hard on Saturday:-

"I am taking over a team that has never won at home this season, and that doesn't happen too often. Even on Saturday, if we can get a win, no matter what happens elsewhere it will give everybody a boost, the players in particular and a platform having got that monkey off our back and go and see if we can put other teams under pressure."

The Manager reported that the bounce game at Lennoxtown on Tuesday had plusses and minuses. Mark Kerr played 45 minutes and training subsequently. Andy Barrowman tore a calf muscle, possibly trying to come back too quick and he will be out for four weeks. Kevin Rutkiewicz is nearly there but the St Mirren game has possibly come too quick for him. Andy Kirk and Kyle Hutton have recovered from illness. Steven McDougall is back but even though Paul Burns played on Tuesday he phoned in ill on Thursday.