The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Challenge for Pars is to keep up standards of second quarter
Stevie Crawford has urged Dunfermline to set themselves a higher points target after finishing the first half of the season on the up.
The Pars, who host Alloa Athletic on Saturday, made improvements from the first quarter of the campaign to the second and currently sit fifth in the Championship table.
The Fifers are just three points adrift of Dundee in fourth and Ayr United in third with 18 games played, and Crawford is optimistic his young squad can get better.
After taking 10 points from their first nine league games and 15 from the next nine, Crawford said: “Since the summer, I would split it into the two quarters.
“The first quarter you could ask did we get enough points on the board? Probably not. Did we have the opportunity to? Yes, definitely, but we never.
“The pleasing thing looking back at that now is that we have a better points tally in the second quarter, so there has been a big part of the squad who have learned and managed to put more points on the board.
“I still genuinely believe that even in the second quarter we can look back at it and say that we have probably slipped up and let points get away from us, but then every team in the league will be saying that.
“You would say in the first quarter we could have done better and in the second quarter we are happy.
“Can we better what we have managed to put together in the second quarter?
“That will be our goal for that third quarter.”
One major improvement has come at home, where the Pars had not won in the league in over seven months before defeating Ayr United in October.
Crawford added: “The home form having turned in the manner that it has, the fans have played a big part in that as well.”