McGinn laments dicey defending and red cards as Saints knocked off top
SAINTS skipper Stephen McGinn is determined to wipe the slate clean after the Buddies endured a “messy” afternoon at East End Park.
St Mirren slithered off top spot in the Ladbrokes Championship as a rampant Dunfermline leapfrogged the Paisley side at the summit with a rousing 3-0 win in front of over 6,600 fans.
It was a grim day all round for Jack Ross’s team with both Adam Eckersley and Gregor Buchanan being sent off late in the second half.
In a tight division, the top six are separated by just four points and McGinn is keen for a response next weekend when Queen of the South are the visitors.
Despite seeing plenty of the ball on Saturday, St Mirren’s dicey defending was ruthlessly punished by the clinical Pars and goals from Declan McManus, David Hopkirk and Callum Morris burnished a fine display of attacking vigour by the purposeful hosts.
McGinn said: “I’m disappointed. I think it was just the manner of the defeat, we never got going.
“The way we’ve played in games recently, we’ve been very easy on the eye, but we didn’t get going at all, we didn’t have a rhythm to our play and it was just a really messy afternoon for us.
“This league’s going to be wide open, there are five or six teams who will fancy their chances of winning it. Dunfermline were a good side last season when we played them and they’ve built from there.
“The way we play, we win games comfortably but we’ve lost a few games heavily. We’ve talked about it.
“A defeat’s a defeat, you don’t lose any more points for getting beaten heavily and you don’t get any more points for winning comfortably.
“We move on. Our home form’s very good and we’ve got three home games on the bounce now to look forward to.”
TWO goals down at halftime, St Mirren tried to haul themselves back into affairs with some early menacing raids after the restart.
But they were floored on 56 minutes when Ian McShane had a fresh air swipe at an attempted clearance and Morris pounced to gobble up Dunfermline’s third goal.
St Mirren have set themselves high standards during their rousing renaissance over the last few months but they never reached those peaks at the weekend.
McGinn said: “We can be critical of one another and it can be heated but it never even reached that point on Saturday because there weren’t many players who did themselves justice.
“But we trust in each other. We can still finish this round of fixtures with a healthy points total.”
The red cards to Eckersley and Buchanan added a further layer of disappointment to the afternoon and McGinn is hoping that ill-discipline doesn’t come home to roost.
He said: “It’s just frustrating because we lose them for the next games. We’ve got a few key players injured and we need those boys next week.
“It didn’t change the result on Saturday but it does have an impact on next week.”
Dumbarton fell behind early on when Jordan Sinclair fired home from a tight angle.
But after Aaron Lynas was sent off Nade took control and set up goals for Mark Stewart and Dimitris Froxylias to steal the points.
And now the Frenchman has set his sights on another home clash with Inverness Caley Thistle next week.
He told the Dumbarton website: “It’s going to be tough. We want to make this a tough place for other teams to come.
“We had a bad day against Dunfermline but have taken a point last week against Dundee United, and now three.
“We’ve proven we can fight back from a goal down, so next week we will look to start strongly and score first.”