Match winner will answer defensive call
Gary Dicker was the unlikely match winner at Rugby Park yesterday but his chances of repeating the feat for a third successive match at Motherwell on Wednesday have been significantly reduced by hamstring injuries to centrebacks Stuart Findlay and Dario Del Fabro.
Both players will be assessed on Monday but the likelihood is that Dicker will team up with Alex Bruce in the heart of Angelo Alessio’s back four at Fir Park. The pair finished this game there and their partnership rebuffed Saints’ late surge.
The Irishman has hardly been prolific since coming to Scotland in January 2016, with just one goal to his name until this month.
“I’ll take two goals as I waited long enough to get one but you have to find a way to win, no matter how,” he said. “Anyway, maybe it’s a good sign that you are coming out on the right side of it after a scrappy game like this but we have a lot to work still to do.”
Dicker’s versatility and intelligence has seen him slot in at the back in previous emergencies. “I have filled in at centre-back a good few times and we have enough players and enough experience here to deal with injuries,” he said.
“You just have to get on with it. We’ll patch ourselves up and get going again.
“Listen, we know what we have in this dressing room. We have bundles of character – we lost big figures such as Kris Boyd, Jordan Jones and Greg Taylor this summer. That can have an effect, but we’ve pulled ourselves together. We have good players.
“The boys that have been here before know what to do it and it probably took the lads who hadn’t been here a little longer to buy into what we’ve been doing.
“We started badly today and we deserved to be told we weren’t good enough but we can’t get ahead of ourselves just because we won. We’re happy with where we are but it’s a battle and you have to earn your wins in this league.
“If you don’t concede, you always have a chance of winning. Nobody remembers how you play or what you did as long as you get the points.”