James McPake was in no mood to “sugarcoat” Dunfermline’s defeat to Queen’s Park.
A makeshift Pars lost 2-1 at Hampden Park on Friday night.
Ruari Paton and Don Thomas were on target for the home side with Ben Summers pulling one back late on for Dunfermline.
Dunfermline lost another defender to injury on the night when Aaron Comrie was replaced with 18 minutes gone.
It meant 20-year-old Miller Fenton playing out of position at centre-back but McPake was in no mood to use a lengthy injury list as an excuse.
He questioned the attitude of his players after Comrie was replaced, comparing it to that of their opponents.
Only Summers, Craig Wighton and Chris Hamilton were given pass marks by their boss.
James McPake: We felt sorry for ourselves
“It’s bitterly disappointing,” said McPake. “To me, it looked like Queen’s Park wanted that game more than us.
“We can sugarcoat it and speak about the injuries and the key players that are missing, but I don’t buy that.
“Particularly from when Aaron goes off, we looked like ‘this isn’t going to be our night’, we felt sorry for ourselves and it’s not good enough.
“There was an acceptance of our fate. You could see it here, the fans could certainly see it.
“I’ll exclude a couple in that, Ben Summers. Yeah, he gives the ball away for the first goal. We should still defend it better. Second goal, we don’t match a runner.
“From then, Ben is the one who tries to gab the game for us, not just his goal. The kid kept trying to get on the ball, kept trying to make things happen.
“It was visible that he wasn’t fit. We had it scanned, we were told that the physio was recommending he didn’t play.
“Ben was desperate to play, there wasn’t going to be any chance of real damage.
“Credit to him, that’s the people you want, who will run through a brick wall for you and he’s certainly done that.
“Craig Wighton was the same, gave everything for 90-odd minutes. He’s another one that if we had the squad, he wouldn’t have been available tonight.
“Chris Hamilton was another that I thought was really good. Playing with a mask on and leading and hurting in that dressing room.”
McPake added that it was the first time as Dunfermline manager that he had to criticise his players in that manner.
“I’m quick to praise them, and I praised them before the game and through the week about how together we had been,” said the Pars boss.
“But when you bring a decent crowd down here, the fans don’t care, they want to see 11 players on the pitch. The staff don’t care, we want 11 players on the pitch.
“If you go out and run and do everything you can to get three points and lose the game, we say ‘unlucky lads, well done’. It didn’t happen tonight.”
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