Managers Post Falkirk

27/03/13: JJ - "Some of the players have probably played their last game tonight ...

After watching his team lose 2-0 at home to Falkirk, Jim Jefferies praised his players for their commitment in such tough times at the Club:-

"Brian Jackson has said that there will need to be severe cuts; we knew that, the man is only doing his job. It is not his fault.

"Some of the players have probably played their last game tonight and you have to give them credit for the way that they went about it tonight. There was very little between the teams and I do not think they deserved to lose a second goal. We dominated most of the second half and just couldn't find the break to get the goal.

"Ryan Wallace should have equalised in the first half with possibly the best chance of the game. It wasn't just about the result tonight, it was about feeling for these players. Given what they have gone through I had to ask them again if anybody did not want to play.

"I do not know who it will be. The man has got a job to do. I had five minutes with him so that I could let the boys know what time he will be seeing them tomorrow. Quite rightly he does not want it dragging on until Friday with another day wondering about their future. He will bring in his people tomorrow, sort it all out and then see me early afternoon.

"The players will arrive just after that and everybody will be told just exactly who is going and who is staying. It is not a nice thing and how these players turned out tonight to play a game of football is just beyond belief. I am proud of every one of them tonight."

The Manager explained that he had no idea what cuts would be announced:-

"He starts a fresh with nothing in his account. If a pound comes in, he has a pound to spend. It is not his and that's his job. He now has to look at the situation going forward, what money will be coming in and what goes out. I do believe if he gets into debt he is responsible for it. That is why he has to be ruthless.

"If the Club can't afford to pay the wages as we have seen over the last five or six months, then it has to be sorted out now. That is why we are in administration. He will tell me tomorrow what needs to be done.

"He has a job to do to see a lot of people who have pledged to put money into this Club as long as certain conditions are adhered to. We will just have to wait and see what that is and how things go.

"I might not be here tomorrow either but if I am we will need to sit down, discuss what we can do with the players. He might want me there with him. I would like to be there with him when he tells them because I have worked with these players all year, they have been terrific and it is not their fault.

"I will feel very very sorry for whoever leaves tomorrow. There's none of them caused me any problem, they have all been a joy to work with. They have given me their all and that's all you can ask. It is a shame how things have worked out for them this year; we had high hopes and we still feel that everything on the playing side has been a tremendous success given the strategy of the Club with young players.

"Look at tonight, Kerr Young came in and I thought he was absolutely outstanding in his debut. Maybe that's the way that they are going to have to go for the rest of the season. Only he will tell me that tomorrow."

Was the Manager disappointed that less than 3000 fans turned out for a derby game that attracted 5746 earlier in the season?

"The bigger the crowd the better but that is how it has been. The fans have been great to us but until everything is resolved and a new set up is installed, that is when we will see the fans turn out.

"It was a cold night, usually Falkirk bring a lot more than they did and we maybe budgeted for 4000 to 4500 here tonight. That's the way it is but last Saturday we had the highest crowd in the league and that was against Dumbarton.

"The fans have tried to respond and the hard core is always there getting behind us and again they were terrific tonight. I am sure that they understand what the boys are going through."

He went on to say that the players missing from Saturday's team were out through injury:-

"Andy Geggan and Joe Cardle were injured, so was Callum Morris. The only one that I left out was Andy Kirk but I wanted to put on the bench young Allan Smith, who has been doing well. I said to Kirkie that I didn't know his circumstances like everyone else tomorrow but I wanted to put a young forward on the bench who has done very well this year for the 20s and give him a wee reward. I wanted to give him 20 to 25 minutes. I gave him that to give him a lift. It was nothing to do with anybody having any tip off about who might be here or who might not. I do not know that, I can assure you that I won't know that until after tomorrow's meeting."

Falkirk's Alex Smith said after the game that everybody in football has sympathy for Dunfermline and the position that they find themselves in:-

"Whatever it takes Dunfermline will still be here. They will get through this, I am quite sure they will. It was a strange game to approach because we didn't know how the reaction would be to administration. We didn't know if their players would get a lift because there is a chance there.

"Tomorrow some of the laddies will be losing their jobs and that is not particularly good for anybody. We didn't know if that would galvanise them or whether it would affect them the other way. We had to lift our game from Saturday because we were so poor on Saturday. So we were motivated that way.

"We knew what our boys were going to do but we weren't quite sure how many Dunfermline people would be here tonight. I thought that there would be more people around but I was disappointed by the size of the crowd. You cannot turn round and blame the public, some of them are maybe disappointed with the whole situation. It was maybe to do with it being a bitterly cold night. There may be some people really sickened by it all and what has affected the Club has affected the town as well.

"We are sympathetic for them but there is very little we can do about that."