The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
McDaid glad to see Dark Blues ‘dig in’
Dundee showed they can “dig in” against Mor ton over the weekend and winger Declan McDaid insists there is far more to come from the Dark Blues this campaign.
T he former Ayr and Partick man made his first start of the season against Ton and played a part in the only goal of the game, just five minutes in.
As the clash wore on, the visitors pushed for an equaliser but were held at bay by the Dark Blues with Jonathan Afolabi’s strike enough to take all three points.
Up next is another tough home match against an inform side.
Raith Rovers have started their return to the second tier on fire with a 3-0 home win over Arbroath and a 5-2 thumping of Queen of the South on the road.
“Raith won again at the weekend and they’ ll be another good team, another hard game,” McDaid said.
“We need another three points, though, so we can keep building.
“I won’t butter it up, Saturday wasn’t a pretty game. We were better first half than in the second, especially when they went to 10, it wasn’t pretty.
“They are the games you need to grind out, though, and it was good to get the win.
“Morton played a lot of long balls and it’s hard to defend that repeatedly but we dealt with it well the whole game.
“We were resilient, got the clean sheet and the win.
“We didn’t get a good start in the first game against Hearts, so we knew we had to bounce back this week to kick on. That’s exactly what we’ve done.
“It might not have been a pretty game but we dug in, got the three points and that’s all that matters.”
McDaid may have been thankful to sit out the 6-2 defeat at Hearts on the opening day but was delighted to return to the team on the right side of Jame s Mc Pa k e’s 4 - 4 -2 set-up.
And he showed the sort of positive attacking play that endeared him to the Dundee support last season.
“Hearts wasn’t a great game for us but I’m just grateful to be back in the team and to help the team to a win,” he added.
“We needed that after the previous game. We knew if we scored early we could dominate the ball.
“We did that first half but obviously second half they went long and it was harder.
“It was good to get the early goal, that settled us in a bit and we played well.
“We were different shape this week, I don’t know if that made a difference, but we played some good stuff at times.
“We created a few chances and could’ve scored more.
“Second half it got scrappy but we showed the other side of our game, that we can dig in and get the points.”
T he 24 - year- old was playing his first competitive match behind closed doors at Dens Park and admits he almost found himself falling into old habits, despite the empty stands.
“Personally, when I’m in the game, I’m focused anyway and I don’t really get affected by the fans, but it is weird,” he said.
“Usually, you’re clapping the fans off at the end but there’s no one there. I almost did it anyway out of habit!
“Hopefully, though, they were watching from home and we can get them back soon.”
And McDaid has assured the Dark Blues support, whether watching online
or physically back in the stands at some point, that there is plenty more to come from their side this term as they chase a return to the top flight.
“There is definitely better to come. That is just the start,” he said.
“We were a bit down after the Hearts game but we knew we had to dust ourselves down to get a win on Saturday and then kick on.
“T h a t ’s done.
“There is a lot of pressure at Dundee but I like that because you know you need to be on it every week.
“Teams will want to beat us and Hearts, that’s the pinnacle for some teams, so we know every game will be hard.
“We also know we’ve got enough quality to win them.” what we’ ve