Dundee 1
Motherwell 1
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Newspaper extract from The Courier .

A home 1-1 draw against Motherwell isn't the kind of result to send Dundee fans home in jubilant mood. They expected much better after that heady 3-0 victory at Tannadice the previous Saturday.

Yet Dundee could have ended the day worse off. Motherwell surprised most of us with an excellent first half display and were well worth their 1-0 lead.

The tide turned immediately the second half started. Dundee equalised and put in their most positive spell of the game but, alas, it didn't last long enough.

In the end a draw was fair, though this was a good point for the visitors, a bad one for the home team to lose.

Manager Jocky Scott was as disappointed as anyone. But he agreed his team started off this game under handicap. No Ray Stephen, no Tosh McKinlay, George Brown Skipper Jim McGeachie or John Brown. Skipper Jim Duffy, we learned afterwards, wasn't feeling up to scratch with a stomach bug even if his form wasn't badly affected.

Jocky also made it clear that 15 minutes out of 90 just won't do. He pinpointed one glaring flaw-Dundee's inability to get behind the opposition before getting in their crosses.

"The one time we managed it, we scored," he pointed out.

That equalising goal came in 48 minutes. Stewart Forsyth surged to the bye line, his cross was headed on by Vince Mennie for Graham Harvey to head home his 11th of the season.

The hard fact is that Dundee didn't trouble an admittedly sound Motherwell defence often enough or with sufficient scoring ideas.

Reinforcements are a priority and the effort in this direction is well under way with a couple of bids for Premier players. Jocky is still keeping mum on any details, though Alan Irvine (Falkirk) and Billy Mackay (Hearts) are the names being mentioned. mentioned.

Motherwell's first half goal came from Fraser Wishart, a long low shot beating Bobby Geddes with the aid of a deflection that many fans didn't notice.

Bobby had one super save from Andy Walker ('Well's outstanding player) but strangely, two of the best chances to win this game fell to two substitutes in the space of a minute in the second half. First Crawford Baptie failed to beat Geddes then Colin Hendry, on for young Steve Camp-bell, saw his effort go wide at the other end.

Campbell, incidentally, had a good game and was only taken off because the Premier League pace was begining to tell on him. McWilliams replaced Mennie for Dundee earlier.

Motherwell had their handicaps, too, in this game. Four of their pool were affected by a virus and another, ex-Tannadice player John Reilly, was the victim of an accident and unable to play. While travelling to training on Friday, John somehow twisted and injured his foot INSIDE his car.

On the field, not an eventful game or stirring day at Dens on Saturday. Yet there was the feeling that a much bigger crowd than the 4167 would have made all the difference to the play and the players.

There were three bookings-Duffy for Dundee and Kirk and Murray for Motherwell.