Amidst the clamour and excitement of a return to a football ground was a half-time reminder of the grim realities of the pressure on one’s blood pressure that such a jaunt can incite; ‘’Mon tae f**k, Motherwell,’ bellowed one irate Fir Park punter as Graham Alexander’s side escaped the boos with a speedy exit up the tunnel as the interval beckoned.  

The Motherwell manager couldn’t have put it more succinctly himself. In any case, the words from one of them had the desired effect as the Lanarkshire side reversed Ruari Paton’s brace that had come in a five-minute burst immediately before the half-time whistle.

An energetic Tony Watt got Motherwell back into it just three minutes after the restart to settle the growls of a home support of 2000 that felt substantially more. There were further goals from Ricki Lamie and Kaiyne Woolery to ensure that those inside the stadium went home significantly happier than they were after their first half viewing. 

Not that Alexander ever felt his own temperature rising. “Their second goal was a deflection and they were sloppy but I thought we were always in control without having that edge,” he said.

“We just had to turn that up. It was a great day for everyone connected to Motherwell and with some supporters getting back into the ground it would have been a blow to lose the game.

“We made a slight tactical switch but it was down to the players turning the dial from 8.5 to 10.  We had a lot of the ball and it was maybe a bit too easy in possession and we didn’t take a risk with the ball.  We have got new players in making their debuts and a few boys playing their second 90 minutes – had we more bodies they probably wouldn’t have played.  But we scored three goals in the second-half. We were just too relaxed in the first-half.”

Motherwell are up against Airdrie this midweek as they look to win the group and head into he knockout stages of the Premier Sports Cup. Aside from yesterday’s victory, there were positives to take from the first start from Dutch forward Kevin van Veem who didn’t quite make it onto the scoresheet but did everything but. 

Aside from that and with new players coming into the squad, Alexander was pleased with the application and camaraderie shown by flipping the half-time score. His sights are set now on the midweek derby that can ease Motherwell out of the group stages. 

“We were the better team throughout the game,” he said. “We lost two sloppy goals but I thought we controlled the game. We had to turn up the tempo of our pressing and our passing and to come back from 2-0 down shows great character and personality from the players. 

“We are building towards the league programme. We have been hit hard with players missing but we are slowly getting there. We are looking forward to going to Airdrie and we will take big numbers down there. We want to keep building and keep improving.” 

Queen of the South manager Allan Johnstone was disappointed with the goals conceded and has insisted he still needs more players in before the start of the league campaign. 

He was forced to play players out of position with forward and goalscorer Paton – released from Hibs three years ago – deployed as a wing-back.

“We’ve a lot of good players but we are short and need to bring in five anyway,” he said. “Ruari was wing back, never played there in his life while Euan East is a centre forward playing centre half. “We will get the players in. We can hopefully go and have a good season. 

“To be fair to Motherwell they came out second half and got the early goal which gave them that bit of momentum. We should probably deal with the corners better, losing two goals from set pieces we have to learn from, and Motherwell have a lot of height. It’s something we need to address.

 “We had to be stronger, couldn’t afford to lose cheap goals. We asked them to be solid at half time so it’s disappointing after being in such a good position.”