Gavin was living the life of Reilly for over 20 second-half minutes at a packed Easter Road on Saturday afternoon.
With well over 16,000 crammed into the stadium for a fiercely competitive clash, the Hearts loanee’s clinical 56th-minute equaliser looked to have earned a well-deserved point for the visitors against promotion favourites Hibs.
A late blunder from Callum Fordyce, after fellow defender Ben Richards-Everton had earlier headed an own goal, gift-wrapped the winner for Hibs top scorer Jason Cummings and spoiled an excellent 90 minutes from Reilly and his new team-mates.
The former Queen of the South player combined effectively with Michael Moffat, keeping the Hibs defence under pressure while also dropping back when necessary to bolster Dunfermline’s outnumbered midfield. It is still very early days, but already the blond forward looks capable of filling the boots of last season’s leading marksman Faissal El Bakhtaoui, now at Dundee.
What really caught the eye, though, was the nerveless finish which pulled the Pars level in front of the huge travelling support and would also have delighted fans of his parent club Hearts.
“I thought the Hibs defender was going to take me out for a second, but I got the ball onto my left foot, I saw the keeper coming towards me and I managed to put it past him and into the far corner,” said Reilly as he relived the end of a sublime Dunfermline passing move. “I’m delighted to get off the mark and get my first goal for the club.
“I reckon it was a really good game for the neutrals, but we’re disappointed with the result. I’d say we were a bit ‘in and out’ in the first half, but we were well in the game in the second half.
“We were definitely on top after we equalised and the home crowd were getting on their backs, so we’re gutted not to have taken anything from the game.
“We showed today that we’re a good side and I believe we have the quality and the personnel to go 4-4-2 against most teams in the Championship.
“It’s still early days this season, but we have a really good base now and hopefully we can build on that in the next few weeks and months. We just need to pick ourselves up and go again next week (a derby away to joint leaders Raith Rovers).”
Pars boss Allan Johnston added: “We’re gutted we haven’t taken anything and I don’t think we deserved that. The players responded brilliantly after half-time and at 1-1 we looked the likelier team to score again.
“Hibs and Dundee United are the promotion favourites, but we’ve come here and put in an excellent performance, so there are plenty of positives.”