Sunday, April 20, 2008

Queen of the South 1 Dundee 0, Palmerstone Park, 19/April/08

A goal three minutes before the interval was enough to secure victory for Queen of the South and finish off Dundee's title hopes. Bob Harris swung in a corner which the Dark Blues defence failed to clear, and Brian Gilmour fired high into the net. Queens had chances to increase their lead but met with stout defending and some fine goalkeeping by Craig Samson. Dundee failed to threaten and the Scottish Cup finalists' held on to record their third win in-a-row. Dundee rarely threatened to score and there was little for 566 strong travelling support to cheer, not that they kept quiet, the team getting the same sort of vocal backing that has been a feature of a campaign where Dundee have challenged but not quite managed to reward that support.
Dundee: Samson, Cowan, Dixon, MacKenzie, Malone, McDonald, Daquin (Lyle 46), Robertson (Noubissie 71), Swankie (O'Brien 71), McMenamin, Antoine-Curier.Subs Not Used: Roy, Worrell.
Booked: MacKenzie.
Att: 3,005
Ref: S Conroy.
Alex Rae was bitterly disappointed that his side hadn’t performed against Queens “We were second best all over the park, never really got the grips with it at all, that’s the disappointing thing to go out in the manner we did, you’ve got to give them credit they’ve performed so well recently but when they perform like that it’s hard to take. e was honest about the difference between first and second place in the division too “I think the difference is that they’ve got guys who’ve got that little bit of experience and purpose in the right areas, we don’t have a lot of leaders, we’ve got good, decent, players but not any leaders as such, guys who’ll pull people about – they have that in about three or four positions, guys like Alex Neill and McLaughlin, and I think that was the difference before them and us”. nd Rae admitted that he could struggle to hang onto some of his stars “I’ll have to assess what I’ve got there’s a lot out of contract here, because they’ve had such a good season I’m sure a lot of them will be leaving, just for the fact you can’t get them on longer contracts.”