Managers post Stranraer

29/11/14: JJ - "We were by far the better team today up until they got the goal ... Link to audio of both managers.

- - Listen to reaction from Jim Jefferies

- - Listen to Steven Aitken`s Post Match Comments

Jim Jefferies was somewhat unexpectedly calm after an added time that was full of incident. The Pars led 2-1 as they entered the four added minutes that referee Des Roache had told the Pars captain Andy Geggan there would be. In 92nd minute Stranraer's Stephen Stirling was yellow carded for a robust tackle on Shaun Byrne and while the midfielder recovered JJ shouted instructions to his sub Faissal El Bakhtaoui. The Pars manager was then sent to the stand by the match official.

In 93rd minute Gregor Buchanan was yellow carded and from the resultant free kick, a corner followed and from that corner four and a half minutes into added time Stranraer got an equaliser to take the tie to a replay. Jefferies told the media:-

"It is the first time I have been sent to the stand for trying to get a message to one of my own players! I never shouted at the referee or the linesman or got involved in anything. When the ball was dead, yes I went on to the pitch but you have seen it out there, it is only a yard from the box.

"He is a French lad and he has not the best of English. I am on there explaining what he has to do when the play restarts and I get sent to the stand!"

Turning to the game the Pars gaffer felt that it was a cup tie that his team played well in.

"They bossed the game, scored two goals, took everything that they threw at us, defended really well. Then let's be honest, Willie Gibson was trying to whip a ball to the back post because he is very good at whipping it into that area. He has miscued it a little and not found the right line. It was swerving all over the place and it was a difficult one for the goalie.

"You always know with a 2-0 scoreline and ten minutes to go that a goal gives them a lift. We broke away three or four times but chose the wrong options. What you have to do on these circumstances is to hold the ball and make sure that it doesn't come back at you quick and give them a lift.

"I have got to say there were two or three times that we felt our players were fouled, particularly Faissal just before the free kick that they got. He was taken right out the play and we never got it. The referee played on and then we got a foul against us. So some strange decisions going on in the last two or three minutes.

"I thought Dunfermline were excellent today, we knew that it would be a hard cup tie and everybody fancied them to go through if you read all the papers. They got a lift with time to go and they took advantage of it. Having said that it could easily have been 4-0 to us at one time. Shaun Byrne was right through and it must just have been inches past the post when he drove into the box. There were one or two other opportunities.

"I am really pleased with them because I said before the game that we always play for a win but we said as long as we didn't lose the game at a difficult place to come, that they would have to be well up for it because Stranraer are. They have been on good run but I thought we were by far the better team today up until they got the goal. That gave them a lift.

"For the spectators it was a really good cup tie, there was not an inch given but both teams are still in the next round and we have it all to do again. We now have the advantage because we are at home. We have always done well against Stranraer at home and so hopefully we can do it again."

The Pars gaffer argued against suggestions that his team sat in towards the end and reckoned that Willie Gibson had not intended his cross to end up in the net.

"Listen, at 2-0 they looked beat. It was going to take something out of the blue to get them back into it and it was. I do not think that it was a shot, I think it was a cross. He put it into a great area or tried to put it into a great area. He is capable of doing that, but he has got lucky. It was bending and was on target rather than into the area that he probably played for.

"It was a difficult ball for the goalkeeper and it went into the net. It was a cup tie and at 2-0 down, had nothing to lose. You get a goal out of the blue and then most teams are going to sit back because they are going to throw everything at you.

"Having said that we dealt with it great. We broke away at times where we tried to score a third goal when we could just have killed the game and played it out. But that's what you get from young naive boys, they want to go and score all the time. It is knowing when to do it in games with situations like that.

"We could have seen it out but we certainly didn't sit back intentionally. We didn't need to because we were so much on top but that goal changed the game for them. It meant that we had to dig in. We knew that they would come at us and they did but we stood firm until the last minute when they got a corner. Then we put the ball in the net so the team has nothing to be down about.

"We are not down about the performance; it feels like a win for them and it feels like a loss for us because we were in a great position and it would have been a great result coming down here. It will still be a good cup tie when we play the replay but we will have the home advantage and a good crowd behind us. We have always done well against them at our ground so we need to go out and do it again."

- - Watch Jim Jefferies post match comments to Pars TV