James McPake insists Dunfermline have ‘set the bar’ for the rest of the season after comfortably seeing off Ayr United to go four games undefeated.
The Pars picked up a first win in ten games with last Friday’s 3-1 victory over Partick Thistle and appear to be playing with restored confidence.
The win over Ayr came courtesy of two goals in five minutes just before the break from Chris Hamilton and Chris Kane.
It lifted the Fifers up to fifth in the table ahead of the visit of Airdrie on Tuesday.
However, they are still only two points above Inverness Caley Thistle in second-bottom spot and McPake is determined to see his side build on their success.
He said: “I thought we started the game really well, with the energy.
“Owen Moffat was really good in the opening stages of the game and the crowd reacted to that as well.
“That was the last thing we said to them in the dressing room. When we’re playing here we need to get the crowd involved in the game.
“You can maybe not start the game well but you need to do certain things to get them onside, by working hard and running about – and thankfully today the quality was there as well.
McPake: ‘Very comfortable’
“I think we deserved the 2-0 lead going into half-time.
“In the first-half, we were very comfortable.
“Again, the greedy side of you thinks we could have been more goals in front if we were that wee bit more ruthless. But that’s just being greedy.
“But it’s certainly the best we’ve played here in a long, long time.”
He added: “We’ve got to build on this. That’s the bar set now.
“We’ve never used it as an excuse but there’s been plenty there that have said the injuries have been hampering us – which they have, we know that.
“But some of the performances, you can’t excuse with injuries.
“But I’m pleased where we are now that everyone’s coming back.
“And, I don’t like the word, but hopefully we get a wee bit of luck regarding the injuries and we can push on even further.”
With club captain Kyle Benedictus back amongst the substitutes for the first time in over two months, and with Matty Todd and Alex Jakubiak back in the fold, Dunfermline are looking much healthier.
‘DAFC luxury’
And McPake, who brought on Alex Jakubiak, Michael O’Halloran, Joe Chalmers, Brad Holmes and Ben Summers in the second-half, is relieved to have strength in depth again after an injury-ravaged campaign.
He said: “Being able to bring on five players, any of those five could have been in our team.
“That’s the first time this season we’ve had the luxury to be able to do that.
“We know the squad is strong, but it’s only strong when most of them are fit and we’ve still got a couple of them to come back into it.
“Now we’ve got options to either change the shape or in what we’re trying to do.”
