Reaction

There was little between the sides in this Ramsdens Cup Tie, indeed Alloa could have been ahead in the first half, John Brown’s side I’m sure would have been happy to get to half-time level. In the second half Dundee came back into the game but it took a penalty to separate the teams, certainly not one in the stonewall category. The Wasps battled hard against a team which will be favourites for the new SPFL Championship title for 2013/14, and had to start the game without Jason Marr, Darren Young and Iain Flannigan, while Ryan McCord and Graeme Holmes had only had 45 minutes pre season match play and were still short of match fitness.

paul hartley after ramsdens cup tie

I thought in the first half we were excellent, we passed the ball and dominated possession, played in the right manner, played from the back, had a couple of chances, could have went in at half time one or two up but we knew Dundee would come back at us and they pressed us high up the park in the second half and we couldn’t get going, it was a we bit scrappy – but overall for me Dundee are the bench mark this year and we have shown that we can compete and we can play, we won’t be scared of anyone that is for sure. We had set out to match up with them, I have watched them pre season and they play a back three, the games I had seen them they had killed teams because they were playing a different system, and I thought I would match up, I have worked on it all week and our game plan worked well, it stopped their better players and allowed us to cause them problems. We would like to have won the game it took a penalty to separate the teams, our players will compete this year , we will be underdogs every single week in the league campaign. I was pleased with our performance, we have set ourselves a standard and we must keep to that for the full season. Every game is a though game there is no easy games, we have known that, next Saturday we will go to Peterhead – but one thing I want to do as a manager is will a cup game and get the monkey off my back, I haven’t won one yet. No disrespect to the Ramsdens Cup but the League Cup is more prestigious, if we win next week we would what a big tie, we know it will be tough up at Peterhead, we have already played them pre season, but it would be nice to win. Loads of positives to take from today’s game, I am pleased with the attitude of the players , they looked fit, although we are part time we matched them all the way, I’m proud of them.