Reaction

Alloa Athletic FC after a turbulent last fortnight bounced back where it mattered most on Saturday, on the park. New manager Barry Smith watched from the Dens Park stand as his side gained a good point against Dundee, who had previously edged the previous games against “The Wasps” this season by the tightest of margins, again it looked like another penalty might seperate the teams. However the Alloa Athletic players never gave up and it was a credit deserved when Ben Gordon equalised after great work on the wing by substitute Iain Flannigan had created the opening. This was a positive display as the players looked to impress their new manager and indeed prove this is still a lot of football to be played this season

paddy connolly at dens park

A good point in the end obviously, getting such a late goal but the boys fought really hard and showed good team spirit, which is exactly what I expected and with the new manager watching from the stand he will see the boys are fighting for each other, which has been the case since the start of the season been recently we have been going through a bit of a sticky patch and when that happened some of the decisions go against you, the penalty decision, my gut feeling was that it was a great tackle and it wasn’t a penalty, but it happens and later I was more worried about the players getting more bookings cause we cannot really afford that at this stage of the season, but maybe getting the goal at the end, meant that the boys were in good spirits coming off. I know Dundee had a lot of the ball, our game plan was to try and soak up the pressure, which worked for good spells in the game and we had the two players up top, but I would like if they had been more of a threat but overall I thought we deserved at least a point, so pleasing we at least took something from the game – this season Dundee have knocked us out of the Ramsden’s Cup and edged us in the other league games by a single goal, that is the first time this season we have taken a point from them, so in that aspect pleasing, there is good signs there for the manager – the fighting spirit, they are all fighting for each other, the young lad Liam Lindsay who came in for his debut on loan from Partick Thistle did well but we are still a wee bit stretched in numbers, Kevin Cawley was out suspended today, Jason Marr & James Creaney were injured but the lads who came in did well, Eddie Ferns did well when he came on, Iain Flannigan helped create the goal so from that point of view they all played their part. Certainly a bit of a morale boost prior to next Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie against Dumbarton, after losing the penalty after 69 minutes and going behind we had to change things a little bit and try and throw bodies forward and sometimes it works for you and sometimes it doesn’t, Eddie went wide right and I said to Ben Gordon we will just have to go man to man at the back, we were as well losing 2-0 as 1-0 and at that point threw Ben forward and Ben has come up trumps with the late equaliser, he took the goal well and he has done that a couple of times this season so for that point of view pleasing. Pleased more for the players it has been a tough couple of weeks for them with everything that has happened – losing their manager, but now they have a new manager to impress. We are in there fighting now, we are at the stage of the season where I think it is more important you get results than performances but I felt we got both today and we got a point out of the game, I would like to have been a wee bit more in the final third with the ball but we can’t have everything and we could have scored in the first half but pleased in the circumstances with a point.