The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Pars still looking for first league victory
The Scottish Championship table makes depressing reading for the patrons of Dunfermline.
Five games into the league campaign and Stevie Crawford’s men are nestled at the foot of the table, still yearning for their inaugural league victory of this campaign.
A defeat at the hands of Inverness Caledonian Thistle – thanks to a late Sean Welsh penalty when the honours really deserved to be shared – could prompt panic in the ranks, but Pars loan star Greg Kiltie has endured the Scottish Championship before, and radiated confidence that results are just around the corner.
“I don’t even know how many games we have played”, Kiltie stated.
“This is my first game in the league. How many games are we in? Five games in? Plenty of time to turn it around.
“You look up the table, five games in, it’s not the best start.
“I was at Morton last year. We finished fifth and everybody was writing us off to go down, do you know what I mean? Anything can happen.
“That’s just the way of this league, if I’m honest. Everybody beats everybody. As you can see with Ayr United and Dundee United.”
The Pars had the bulk of the chances in a tightly-contested tussle in opposition to Caley Thistle with an early Lee Ashcroft effort being cleared of the line by Carl Tremarco, and a potential Jordan White own-goal prevented only by the quick reflexes of Mark Ridgers.
It was an unfortunate handball by Danny Devine with five minutes remaining that gave referee Nick Walsh no other option than to award the spot-kick, with the substitute Walsh rattling home the penalty with aplomb.
Kiltie conceded that fortune was not smiling on the Fifers at the moment, but the squad were trying to maintain a sanguine mindset to turn things around.
“That’s my second game but that’s been the way of it. The breaks are not falling to us at the minute
“We are trying to stay as positive as we can. I think there’s a lot of positives to take out of the game. I don’t think we should have been beaten, to be honest.
“I think we did enough to win the game. We have about three shots in 30 seconds and they ricochet away from goal – it tells you it is about luck at the minute.
“We just need to change that and start winning. That is the goal, obviously, but we need to stay as positive as we can.”
The outlook is far more positive for Inverness as the Highlanders nestle two points off the top spot in third place with midfielder and penalty hero Welsh admitted that this was a fixture that John Roberson’s men struggled with last season.
“We played a very similar game here last year and actually ended up losing it,” Welsh stated
“We need to make sure that we turn these draws, or losses last season, into wins this year – that will stand us in good stead for the season.”