Manager post Peterhead

01/10/22: link to audio of James McPake’s post match thoughts

Pars boss James McPake refused to agree with the suggestion that his side were coasting in the game against Peterhead even at 2-0 up.

“That was as poor as we have been. First half we were ridiculous, sloppy, flat and we allowed them to come here and get into a game. The one thing that we said we would try and guarantee was that we would give everything. I don’t think today that happened.”

Do you put that down to the fortnight’s break?

“No, that would be looking for excuses. It was just a poor performance all over and we have to look at ourselves as well because we had to change shape ten minutes into a game again.”

Can you take an solace in that you are still top of the league?

“No, none at all. The only thing in my mind is that poor performance on the whole as a group. As I say we take part, particularly me - I take a big hand in that, it wasn’t good enough.”

Was it loss of concentration at the end?

“It was a silly foul that we gave away. Earlier on we gave away a few daft fouls and Ryan Dow hit the bar with an unbelievable strike. To be honest I don’t think we deserved to win the game. I don’t know if it was a loss of concentration, if that was the case we didn’t turn our concentration on from the start. We were poor individually, collectively as a group all day.”

Was it naïve to give away a free kick at that point in the game?

“I know that you can say that you can stop every free kick but there is no need to give free kicks like that away by just running out like a train and banging into people. It is just not clever in the game. I get that there are places on the pitch where if somebody goes by you, you need to foul them but that certainly wasn’t one of them. There was one just before that when Josh Edwards did the same.

“We take it on the chin and we move on and go to a really game next week away from home. We need to be much better.

“I wasn’t pleased with any of the players today. I would give credit to Chris Mochrie but it is like a broken record when we are asking a kid who is on loan to be really effective, be the spark, get the ball to him as much as we will create something.

“We scored two goals and when you look at it we are unbeaten and it is not like us to concede goals like that but it happened. We are not going to paper over it, we need to get back on the training pitch and put it right.

“Today wasn’t acceptable and rightly so the fans will be critical of this performance and critical of the squad and the staff because it is certainly not good enough.”

What can you tell us about the two new signings - Kane Ritchie-Holster and Robbie Mahon (above right)?

“The two of them are good players. Robbie came on because Lewis (McCann) was struggling and Matty Todd had ran a lot so we got Kane on. You cannot put any blame at their door. The two boys came in and they are just trying to find their way at the football club. They will be a good help to us.”

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