Queen of the South may play on an artificial pitch, but their quality appears genuine.
The Dumfries side made little fuss in seeing off Dumbarton 3-0 at Palmerston yesterday to remain third in the Championship table, with only Hearts and Rangers having lost fewer games.
Queens had plenty of possession in the first half, but had nothing to show for their efforts after the first half-hour.
Mark Durnan and John Baird missed decent chances before the breakthrough came after 32 minutes. The home side were awarded a penalty when a flick from Danny Carmichael hit Scott Taggart's hand and Baird confidently drilled home the spot-kick.
Durnan headed home the second goal after 69 minutes after Dumbarton failed to clear a corner kick and there was no way back for the visitors two minutes later when Derek Lyle nodded in Baird's cross.
Alloa Athletic climbed to seventh place after only their third league win when they beat Livingston 1-0 in a tight match at Recreation Park.
Livingston had chances in the first half, but could not find a way past Craig McDowall, their former goalkeeper.
Gary Glen created an opportunity for Jordan White shortly before half-time, but he could not keep his shot down.
McDowall then saved well from Glen moments later and White had a netbound shot cleared off the line by Stephen Simmons.
Alloa scored what proved to be the decisive goal early in the second half when Kevin Cawley fed Liam Buchanan and the former Partick Thistle player made no mistake.
Danny Mullen should have brought Livingston level soon afterwards but pulled his shot wide of the post.
The visitors threw everything at Alloa in the closing stages, but were careless in front of goal and it was the home side who almost added to their lead at the death.
Livingston's Declan Gallagher was sent off near the end for foul and abusive language towards the assistant referee.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article