Dundee 6
East Fife 0
League (First Division)

Match Report

The tipster who put his reputation on the line to declare Dundee v East Fife as the "mother of all bankers" for a home win didn't have to wait long to see his prediction vindicated.

Paul Tosh's opening score took just 82 seconds to arrive and signalled the start of a 6-0 romp to nearly match the 7-1 rout at Methil 11 days previously and take their tally from the sides' three meetings to 15-more than half their league total.

It came from a fine bit of football, Gavin Rae's neat through ball springing lain Anderson clear on the left. The cross was perfect, the finish matched it and Dundee were running. off and

allowed us to relax and free to concentrate on my take it from there," said game. Taking part in com- petitive matches forces you to think and react that bit quicker and it was a very valuable experience.

manager Jim Duffy.

"They did just that and I was delighted with the atti- tude shown by all my players throughout. There were some excellent per- formances and I was particularly happy for Gavin Rae, who was superb in the midfield, and Jerry O'Driscoll, who grabbed a couple of goals.

"It is always nice to see young players develop and these two have done just that."

O'Driscoll, who came within a couple of inches of a hat-trick with a looping header that dropped on to then over the bar, put his success down to Duffy's recent decision to send him to Portadown on loan.

"I scored three over there and came back a lot more confident. Jim Hamilton's move to Hearts opened up another place in the team and hopefully I can stay in the side and keep scoring goals."

With new signing Lee Power also grabbing a brace, the Dark Blues look well on their way to banish- ing the indecision that marked their recent goal- drought.

Ironically the pick of Dundee's six-the third of the game-came not from a forward but midfielder Chic Charnley.

Dribbling his way to the edge of the box, he looked up to see a few options for a "I had been a bit worried about the start of the game but scoring a goal like that allowed us to relax and take it from there," said manager Jim Duffy.

"They did just that and I was delighted with the atti tude shown by all my players throughout. There were some excellent per formances and I was particularly happy for Gavin Rae, who was superb in the midfield, and Jerry O'Driscoll, who grabbed a couple of goals.

"It is always nice to see young players develop and these two have done just that."

O'Driscoll, who came within a couple of inches of a hat-trick with a looping header that dropped on to then over the bar, put his success down to Duffy's recent decision to send him to Portadown on loan.

"It really sharpened me up," he said.

"Jim told me before I left that I was always going to be part of his plans so I was free to concentrate on my game. Taking part in competitive matches forces you to think and react that bit quicker and it was a very valuable experience.

"I scored three over there and came back a lot more confident. Jim Hamilton's move to Hearts opened up another place in the team and hopefully I can stay in the side and keep scoring goals."

With new signing Lee Power also grabbing a brace, the Dark Blues look well on their way to banishing the indecision that marked their recent goal drought.

Ironically the pick of Dundee's six-the third of the game-came not from a forward but midfielder Chic Charnley.

Dribbling his way to the edge of the box, he looked up to see a few options for a forward pass but decided to eschew them all in favour of a shot. It was the sort of situation that usually sees the ball end up in the back of the stand but his strike couldn't have been better hit and fairly flew into the net past East Fife keeper Lindsay Hamilton, who had been dropped for the Boxing Day game against St Mirren in favour of young colleague Dean Robertson and couldn't have enjoyed his return to action (he politely declined to share his thoughts afterwards).

The former Rangers keeper made a hash of O'Driscoll's first goal but in fairness made many good stops throughout the game, notably from Iain Ander son and Power, and won't automatically expect to be sidelined for Wednesday's visit of Stirling Albion.

"Obviously we need to keep reassessing the squad we have here to find out everybody's capabilites which means team changes," said Fifers

manager Jimmy Bone after his side's 10th successive league defeat.

"We are trying to change things around and on Fri day I made a couple of attempts to get new players in only to see them fall through (they have given up their interest in Icelandic under-21 inter national Olafur Stiggson).

"I always said it would be the second half of the season before we would reap the benefit of the work that is going on with the young players here and that is still the case."

Perhaps, but on this evidence it is Dundee who are entitled to look forward to 1997-and in particular Wednesday's Tayside derby with St Johnstone with much greater optimism than the Methil men.

Match report written by The Courier