Managers post East Fife
Saturday, 9th Jul 202209/07/22: link to audio of James McPake and Stevie Crawford’s post match comments
- - Listen to this James McPake interview
James McPake was happy to take the victory from Bayview:-
"I said on the very first day I got the job that we`d be working towards and aiming for July 9. It`s here and it`s a good start. If someone had offered it, I would have taken it.”
You had to have patience to wait on that first goal?
"We did, I think in the first half we were, I don`t know if negative is the word, but we didn`t do what we have been doing throughout pre season and in the games. Which is playing aggressive football and going forward. We were too comfortable and too happy just keeping the ball, which isn`t what we want to do.
“The second half you see the difference when you play with that bravery, wanting to play forward. The chances we created, be it crosses into the box from Josh Edwards, Aaron Comrie getting high and with that front three you`re always going to get goals.
“Both of them came from Lewis today. He was excellent on the day, he`ll be disappointed not to get his hattrick. He was worthy of those two goals. The difference in the game in the second half was that we played with a tempo and a bravery to get the ball forward.
"The first half wasn`t a showing that we want to put out there. We know it`s going to be tough and we`re going to come to places where the game is slowed down. I think East Fife did that pretty well in the game which you accept at times.
“You`ve also got to, as much as I`m saying East Fife slowed the game down, we were negative in the way we played - I don`t mean negative to have a go at the players. I just mean that we were happy at keeping the ball, we`re happy going back, then it`s far too much of the ball from open play from our play. We were just comfortable enough.
“There is a time and obviously a place to go back to the goalkeeper when it`s on, but I just felt we didn`t take enough risk in the first half. Which is the reason we didn`t get enough clear-cut chances. We still had a few, Lewis will be annoyed he didn`t score with the header.
“There were a couple of other balls into the box that evaded everyone, but the difference in the second half was night and day and I`m delighted for them. That`s more of a showing of what we want to represent with our team.”
Another clean sheets and standard setting?
"There`ll be games like that where you get frustrated at the top end of the pitch for whatever reasons - if you`re missing your chances or you just can`t break a team down. So you have to be solid at the other end of the pitch, which we were and we`re delighted about.
“Deniz had one save and we had the ball across the goal from a first-half set-play which wasn`t great for us. We should be making contact with that. But other than that I think we were comfortable in what we had to do defensively. The marked difference from first half to second half is what we need to do - those energy levels and the tempo we`ve played at, we need to carry that on to Tuesday night."
- - Hear Stevie Crawford’s post match thoughts
Watch James McPake’s interview with PARStv
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