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The first goal at Methil on Saturday was always going to be crucial, in the first half home keeper Ryan Goodfellow made crucial saves – Callum Crane was first to go close, when his cross was palmed away but fell to safety.

Craig Malcolm was next to go close with a header, the keeper making a point blank save from an Iain Flannigan pin point cross which looked netbound, the game at this stage was going from end to end. Jon Robertson went close with an effort from the edge of the box, but the best effort of the first half fell to Paul Willis from East Fife but his shot was saved by Neil Parry.

The first goal in this game was always going to be crucial and on 56 minutes Greg Hurst was on hand to tap home after Neil Parry had palmed out initial danger. This gave the home side something to hold on to and as much as “The Wasps” pushed for an equaliser, nothing was falling for the strikers.

Although Alloa had lots of possession in the final quarter of the game as the home side sat back, nothing was falling or breaking to the strikers in front of goal. Late in the game in one of the visitors attacks on the home defence Allan Crane’s header went close landing on top of the net.

jim goodwin after defeat in methil

Disappointed obviously, that’s just the ups and downs of football unfortunately, that’s the league that we are in, we had spoke about how good a performance it had been last Saturday against a very good Raith Rovers team, we had set a good standard in that game, had we lived up to those standards today we felt as if we could get a positive result. Over the piece I don’t think either team deserved to win it, to be honest with you I thought it was a real scrappy kind of game, the pitch was quite sticky and the first goal was going to be vital, East Fife managed to get the goal, it was quite a scrappy goal really – we didn’t defend it well on the left side, it was too easy for the cross to come into the box, big Neilly got a hand to it but he palmed it out into an area where the East Fife boy can tap it into the net, that gave them something to hold onto then.

We dominated the game after that in terms of having plenty possession in their half and putting balls into their box, causing them problems but I think we could still be there now and not scoring a goal – we just didn’t seem to be getting any breaks in and around the box. I’m disappointed for my two centre halfs more than anything, I thought they were excellent against a good striker in Chris Duggan, Neil Parry has not had too many saves to make, in fact I don’t think either team had many shots on target, I don’t think it was a great game but the first goal was so important, we lacked that cutting edge in the final third which was disappointing, that is why we went with our three bigger boys up front for the last 25 minutes because I just felt we weren’t causing them any problems at all, playing the way we like to play – getting the ball on the deck and play attacking football but we weren’t getting any joy doing that so we decided to go a little bit more direct and hoping something would drop to us in the box, but it wasn’t the case.

It is always a concern when you don’t win games, consistency individually and as a team, I thought we did well against Hibernian and again last week against Raith Rovers but today I don’t think we did and the teams in this league which are the most consistent throughout the season always tend to be the ones who are up there challenging and in days like today when it is not really going for us we should still be grinding out a point, not that we would be happy with a draw but I just felt we were not looking like scoring but at least we should come away with something.