Dundee 2
St Mirren 1
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Newspaper extract from Don John | The Courier .

In the Premier League a win will always be far more important than the performance. On that basis, Dundee got off to a fine start by beating St Mirren 2-1 at Dens on Saturday.

They're already two points up on last season, when they lost their first home game to Hibs.

Their start on Saturday, in fact, was breathtaking-a goal in 54 seconds (by Archie Knox's watch), thanks to a super shot from Bobby Connor.

Just the stuff to inspire the team and bring on a wave of euphoria to the terracings. But how quickly things changed.

As Archie said later, "We went downhill after that goal."

It was St Mirren who settled to play the smoother football, and show just as much danger.

They proved it with an equaliser from Gardner Spiers, though Dundee's defence, never impressive, looked really bad at this one.

A remarkable series of misses by both teams made this a lively 45 minutes and on the stroke of half-time Dundee struck again with a penalty goal which proved the winner.

Bobby Connor again did the trick from the spot, after Ray Stephen in full flight, and all on his own, had been brought down by keeper Jim Stewart. This was one of around half a dozen solo dashes during the game, and the only one that led to a goal.

I'm bound to say, though, that in my opinion half the players concerned were offside- decisions which weren't given.

Still, it all made for a steady buzz of excitement, an atmosphere which was to dissipate in the second period, when play became scrappy and stuttery.

Blame the players, blame the officials too. Tommy Muirhead had obviously taken the latest S.F.A. clamp-down instructions to heart. His whistle was seldom silent, often irritating in its severity. A whopping 46 fouls were recorded.

I'm all for tight control-but if this trend continues for the season, then much of the entertainment will go out of the window.

In the end, not a quality win for Dundee. As Archie Knox remarked, with more honesty, "We used up a bit of our luck out there today." He acknowledged that the Saints were a good team, a better-looking side than Dundee for much of the game.

But he wasn't prepared to go overboard on the Dundee deficiencies, for these are early days and "there's a lot of sorting out to do."

The reorganised defence, as I've said, was shaky and they'll clearly need time to settle in- including big buy Jim Duffy, who is being asked to play a role new to him in defence.

Dundee also missed some good chances, but they did better in this department than St Mirren, a fact admitted by opposing boss Alex Miller. "They took their chances, we didn't" was his summing-up.

One pleasing point for Archie Knox was the way his players stuck to their jobs, even when things weren't going their way.

John Brown, playing his first game since last season, didn't go off with injury as many thought-he was just tired. He'll get another run tonight in the Forfarshire Cup semi-final at Brechin.

One booking in the game- Bobby Glennie. It was a bit harsh, considering many worse looking tackles went before.