Reserve team coach, Gary Montignani gave his thoughts to the website after the 3-2 defeat to Hibernian Reserves on Tuesday afternoon:-
“It was a tough one to take in the end. I thought we struggled a wee bit in the first half with their movement and rotations. Their tempo kind of spooked us in the first half and it was hard to get the messages on during that first half in terms of what we were wanting to try and change. But we hung in there during the first half which was good and a credit to them.
“We were a bit fortunate and rode our luck a wee bit. Certainly when we reset after the first half I thought we were really good. We wanted to be a wee bit more aggressive in getting after them. I felt in the first half we were caught between a press and sitting off and they were able to pick us off which is not where we want to be.
“We got a grip of the game a lot better at the start of the second half albeit we were disappointed to go 2-0 down. The guys were saying that there was a foul in the lead up but to be honest, I didn’t see it clearly myself. The reaction after that was first class.”
With news of the Crossgates Primrose match being postponed loanees Jake Sutherland and Ewan McLeod were able to come on as subs with Dunfermline two behind after just twelve minutes of the second half. Gary continued:-
“I thought Jake and Ewan coming on made a massive difference in terms of their quality on the ball and Jake was a powerful threat in behind. Even Ewan talking to the ones in front made a massive difference and then once we got back into the game I thought we were excellent.
“The first goal came from Andrew (Tod)’s free kick. You always ask somebody just to put it in an area. If somebody is on the end of it great, if not it ends up in the back of the net. Whether it was a shot or not I’m not so sure but he’ll take it. The second one I thought was a really good piece of play. We defended a free kick, Max (Little) was alert and quick off his line, Conley (Adamson) sent Taylor (Sutherland) in and the finish was outstanding.
“Even in the first half when we didn’t have a lot of the ball Taylor was causing problems getting in behind or holding the ball up. He was a constant threat and he deserved his goal. We had a great angle behind it and you could see as soon as it left his boot it was in.
“Then from there I thought our tails were up, we had them rattled and the things that they were doing in the first half to hurt us didn’t really happen in the second half. The game kind of fizzled out a bit and we were disappointed to lose a third one, it was a softish goal from our point of view to concede. I’m disappointed with the end result but the second half performance especially I was really really pleased with.”
Although both sides fielded young players Hibs had slightly more experience in their squad. Gary felt that we were giving away a couple years on them but it was a different challenge from the previous week’s match against Livingston:-
“We were up against four or five first team players last week but today they could test themselves against more experienced younger players, ones maybe a wee bit further on in terms of their careers. You could see that they have talent and I think there were one or two in there who are on loan and playing first team football in the leagues.
“It was a different challenge but I thought second half was a lot more like us. We took the shackles off and caused them a lot more problems.”
Next reserve match will be the cinch SPFL Reserve Cup final away to Livingston on Tuesday 23rd April. Gary said of that:-
“We are all excited, it is the next challenge for us. We will see what team we have got for that and if it is the young ones that we saw last week, I think we can be really confident that we can go and do something. When you get to any final you are desperate to win it and they certainly are.”
Match Report: 09/04/24 – Dunfermline Reserves 2 Hibernian Reserves 3
