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Persistence pays off in loan deal for Hearts kid
Queen’s Park .......... 2 East Fife.................. 2 Gus MacPherson hailed his deadline day loan signing for scoring one and setting up another in their 2-2 draw at Hampden.
The Queen’s Park boss admitted to pestering Dario Zanatta’s parent club Hearts to bring the striker back to Mount Florida.
The Canadian forward starred for the Spiders during a three-month loan spell earlier in the season.
And his gaffer’s persistence clearly paid off early as the 19- year- old opened the scoring and set-up Anton Brady to give their side a 2-0 half-time lead before an East Fife second-half fightback.
“It was excellent to get him,” MacPherson told the Reformer. “He enjoyed his first spell here.
“It was probably done a bit later on in the deadline day and it was great for Hearts to let us proceed.
“We’re grateful to Craig [Levein] and Ian Cathro who thinks this is a great place to help his development.”
The Queen’s boss also bolstered his squad with the addition of Celtic fullback Aidan McIlduff, Partick Thistle’s Dominic Docherty and St Mirren striker Kalvin Orsi.
MacPherson said: “We are losing Gregor Fotheringham, he’s going to Australia as part of his university degree so we felt we needed to strengthen the squad.
“We just wanted to make sure we had the bodies to cope with the second half of the season.”
MacPherson made five changes to the side who were well-beaten at
Peterhead and saw his team take the lead courtesy of the fresh face in the starting line-up.
Zanatta linked up with Paul Woods before striking a right-foot shot low past the advancing Ryan Goodfellow and in at his right-hand corner.
The home side then went 2-0 up in 35 minutes and again Zanatta played a key role. The youngster took advantage of a wayward Fife pass in midfield and burst forward. His lay-off to Anton Brady on his left was perfectly weighted for him to take the ball in his stride into the box, steady himself, and drill a low shot past Goodfellow.
Former Queen’s man Chris Duggan almost pulled his side back into the game just after the interval when he worked his way into the box on the left and let fire with a right-foot shot that William Muir did well to parry away on 49 minutes.
But the relief among home fans was short lived, as a minute later, Duggan fired the Fifers back into the game. He took a pass from Luke Watt on the edge of the box and guided a right-foot shot wide of Muir.
The Fifers looked sharper and Adam Cummins needed a good tackle to prevent Ross Brown getting in a shot after Duggan had set him up.
Docherty got his debut in 55 minutes, coming on for Brady, and he arrived in time to see Zanatta work an opening into the box on the left that almost led to a chance.
The pressure had been mounting on the Queen’s defence so it was no surprise when the Fifers equalised in 72 minutes. MacPherson’s men had been under the cosh when Duggan played a cross down to Scott Robinson and he was all on his own six yards out to sidefoot past the stranded Muir.
It was an emphatic turnaround from a team now on an 11-game unbeaten run to leave MacPherson gutted.
He said: “It was another tough game. East Fife are on a fantastic run so we had to work extremely hard to get a point.
“We got off to a great start in the first half . We may not have had as much possession as we would normally have, but we were clinical and we found ourselves 2-0 up.
“We didn’t start the second too well and they scored an early goal which gave them the impetus to kick on.”
Queen’s visit Stenhousemuir on Saturday in a 3pm kick off.