George Cran

Frustration – is there any other feeling at Dens Park?

FRUSTRATION is the word around Dens Park this season.

And it seems like that feeling is never-ending when the weather has another go at the vulnerable pitch on the day of a game.

It’s official, God has decided Dundee versus Ayr United will never be played.

Just wait until the new date (the fifth one) of Tuesday, March 16, and we’ll see some freak tornado sweep off the Bobby Cox and tear up the grass.

Seriously, though, last night was a major missed opportunity for Dundee to put that awful performance against Queen of the South behind them quickly.

It sums up the season at Dens Park when the only day forecast for rain this week is game day.

With the Honest Men coming to town, it was shaping up to be a season-defining match for the Dee and manager James McPake.

Lose and they could have dropped to seventh in the Championship table after 15 games.

With that squad of players, games in hand or no, that would be unthinkable.

However, I fully expected the Dark Blues to come away with all three points and with a much-improved display to boot last night.

I felt like the match at the weekend, disappointing as it was, would’ve shaken the rust out of the Dundee players and they’d be determined to sort things out.

Both McPake and captain Charlie Adam rejected rustiness as a reason for their slow start but I can’t see any other conclusion to draw.

It took 45 minutes to shake off the cobwebs and, by then, Queens were already 2-0 up.

To be fair to Dundee, on another day they could have won that game 5-2 in the second half with the chances they created.

And that’s why I fancied them to put things right against Ayr.

I’ve thought a number of times this term that a team would be on the wrong end of a doing against Dundee but it’s just not materialised so far.

And time is running out for them to finally show their true quality.

The players and management will all have been frustrated by the denial of that chance to redeem themselves yesterday.

For Dees, they’ll just have to hope they can bottle up that feeling and unleash it at Morton on Saturday.

Because that won’t be an easy trip.

Ton haven’t been in good form of late but took an impressive point from Tynecastle last time out, only the second team to come away with anything from Hearts.

And they are another team just a little bit behind Dundee in the table.

A win is required for the Dark Blues and then another on Tuesday against Inverness.

The beauty of the next few weeks is they’ll have no time to think – get a positive result and they can roll on to the next game a couple of days later.

This is a chance for Dundee to sort out their season.

They don’t want to be heading to Hearts next weekend still flailing about in mid-table.

The Dark Blues need a chance to fix their awful performance against Queen of the South.