Lee Wilkie

Dee left it late but plenty to be encouraged about

DUNDEE didn’t half leave it late against Bonnyrigg Rose on Saturday but there’s still plenty to be encouraged about at Dens Park.

People will say they got lucky with scoring so late but the amount of chances they were creating it was no surprise when it finally did come.

Having come up against Bonnyrigg a few times while at Lochee United, I was fully expecting it to take a bit of time to break them down – maybe not that amount of time, though!

And the Lowland League club started off really well, getting in front and defending well by being organised.

However, look at the game honestly and Dundee’s struggles came from a mix of poor decisions from the referee and bad finishing from the Dark Blues.

That made life difficult, in particular the Danny Mullen and Osman Sow ones in the second half stand out when they tried to finish with the wrong foot each time.

Bonnyrigg’s penalties, meanwhile, were bad calls.

The first definitely wasn’t while the second was at least debatable.

Jordan Marshall got too tight initially but backed off before the player went down. The left-back gave the referee a decision to make but the official should have spotted it wasn’t enough to send the Rose player over.

In fact, Dundee’s shout for the one on Sow was more of a foul than the two given to Bonnyrigg.

However, James McPake’s side got over those issues, even if it took longer than they’d have liked, and got themselves through.

I thought they got the balance of the team spot on against Hearts but it wasn’t quite clicking on Saturday.

That’s no disrespect to Lee Ashcroft who did a decent enough job as a makeshift right-back.

But you could see he was wanting to come inside more often than he should’ve.

Against a packed defence you need width but it’s not his position and he did well considering.

I’m not sure the midfield worked either with the loss of Jordan McGhee.

I think they missed that running ability to move the Rosey Posey around more.

In saying that, I am a huge fan of Fin Robertson and think he’s got massive potential.

I’m just not sure how he fits in with Shaun Byrne doing the holding role so well.

And it seems like Max Anderson is ahead of him right now after the way he’s started the season, bringing a lot to the team.

Normally I’d say it might be a good time for Robertson to head out on loan to get more game time. Go play somewhere else for a wee while, come back a better player and get back in the team.

However, yesterday’s announcement to stop the lower leagues for the time being has probably knocked that on the head.

It is worrying times for everyone right now, not just people involved in football.

Hopefully, we’re back to some sort of normality soon.

Dundee left it incredibly late before snatching their equaliser against Bonnyrigg.