Another false dawn? Dee have to prove themselves

I REALLY should have learned my lesson by now.

A grown man in my late

30s with a family, a mortgage and all that boring stuff yet I still find myself sucked into expecting the best from Dundee.

It’s an affliction all football fans suffer.

But, boy, have Dees suffered more than others.

Then there’s certain daft football writers who predict a title win two days before the season kicks off.

I mean, what are they thinking?

It’s Dundee, for Pete’s sake. Everything has gone right so far for Gary Bowyer since he arrived at Dens Park.

Almost perfection in the Premier Sports Cup, including two games against Championship opponents.

And I wasn’t alone in feeling it might actually be different this season – Saturday’s crowd was a very healthy one for a new season following relegation.

This was a chance for the Dark Blues to prove to their long-suffering fans that this time it was going to be different.

Sadly, it ended up being more of the same old rubbish.

I didn’t think Partick Thistle were brilliant – but they were good when it mattered.

Much sharper in and around the opposition box.

It felt like every little thing in the game went their way, any rub of the green, but they deserved that luck by the way they approached the game.

For Dundee, they got their bums smacked early on and couldn’t waken themselves up until it was too late.

The key now is to use that performance, or lack of one, in the games to come.

Use it as a stark reminder of what will happen if you are not at it from the first whistle.

Saturday’s trip to Raith Rovers is the first proper test Bowyer’s Dundee have faced so far.

The test of whether they are actually different this time around.

If they can either shrug the Jags defeat off, or better yet, use it to fire them up in the next games.

In football, there will be setbacks – Dundee have had plenty over the years – but it’s always about how you respond to setbacks.

Last season, they weren’t good at that.

They just have to prove to their fans that this team has more about them.

Because that’s the biggest loss from Saturday, not just the three points that were spirited away by the Jags.

But the optimism of the home crowd was drained out of them inside an hour of the new season. Even for Dundee, that’s impressive.

There will be fans out there needing a lot of convincing after so many false dawns.

The players have some making up to do and the only way to do that is to start winning games.

Largely, though, this season they have done – they’ve won four out of five.

Making Partick Thistle a blip is the aim for August.

And I don’t think this weekend’s trip to Stark’s Park is the worst fixture to follow.

But then, I’ve fallen into that optimism trap again, haven’t I?

Cole McKinnon heads in Partick Thistle’s third goal at Dens Park on Saturday.