James McPake watched his Dundee stars survive a scare last night as they went down to Raith Rovers at Dens Park – but still insisted they’re on course to clinch a dream Premiership return.
McPake’s promotion hopefuls had put themselves in pole position thanks to their comprehensive 3-0 win in Wednesday’s first leg of this Premiership play-off semi-final.
But the Dark Blues couldn’t hit those heights again and failed to sparkle in this televised televised clash which Raith won courtesy of Lewis Vaughan’s stunning 21st minute strike.
John McGlynn’s visitors merited their first-half but let the below-par Taysider’s off the hook by not making more of their outfield superiority on the night.
Dundee are now gearing up to face either Kilmarnock or Ross County in the Premiership play-off final next week, with the first leg at home on Thursday followed by the return next Monday in their quest to secure a dream return to the top-flight.
And manager McPake said: “I would have been fuming if we hadn’t got through!
“ I’m delighted to get through it. It was a bit of a strange game and a tough game.
“They went completely different and they were good.
“I have huge respect for John McGlynn because I love the way his team plays and I’d love my team to play like it.
“They came and gave us a bit of a fright but if someone said you’ll lose one and win one and get through to the final I’d have taken it. It did mean a lot because we were so desperate to get back into the Premiership.
“It wasn’t our best performance but it didn’t need to be. We just needed to find a way to get through the tie.
“The tie effectively was won on Wednesday. We just had to do our job properly.
“We wanted to go ten unbeaten but it’s irrelevant because we’re in the final and we’ll be watching who we could potentially play on Thursday.
“We knew they were going to come and throw everything at it. Over the two legs we were the better team and I thought we maybe had the better of the chances. This part of the job is done.”
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 here