Jim Chapman's view: Dumbarton v Stenhousemuir

Apr 10 2009 by Andy Galloway, Lennox Herald (main ed)

WE were very delighted and pleased for the players because they deserved the points for how they went about the game and for their attitude against Stenhousemuir.

They deserve tremendous credit, but we can only take care of what we do and need to focus on one game at a time.

We can't help other results, but we need help at the moment, and with Elgin holding Cowdenbeath to a draw, we got it. However, results elsewhere mean nothing if we don't get the points out of our games.

We did the negative side of the game very well and had the right personnel on the pitch. We know we can play better overall but we need to take care of other things at this stage, and we know we will get a chance to play football eventually.

What made it even more difficult was that we had players injured and had two youth players on the bench. We have some good youngsters coming through.

We have a long, hard run-in to come and we need to make sure everybody is available. We are all in it together.

Against Elgin last Tuesday, we started well and took the game to them, creating a few good chances, but letting ourselves down with our decision making.

Once we got the first goal, you could see the confidence coming back, but it took the second goal for the pressure to come off us.

The players deserved credit for that game for their ability to adapt to different situations, and they are gaining vital experience.

We got to our usual meeting point at around 2am on Wednesday morning, so Thursday night's training session was all about recovering from a long day.

Some of our players were working on the morning of the game and then working again the next day, so they hard a hard time.