East Fife boss Darren Young said his side lacked a cutting edge as they failed to take anything from Saturday’s meeting with Queen’s Park.
It was the visitors who left with all three points thanks to Ross Millen’s second half penalty after Mark Hurst had brought down David Galt following Mark Docherty’s short passback.
The home side dominated large chunks of the game but were unable to break down a well-drilled resistance.
Young felt the game was there for the taking for his side.
He said: “We probably created enough chances to win two games.
“At half time it’s still 0-0 and then in the second half we go back out and create another three or four chances.
“A stupid pass back, which we’ve spoken about in other games, has cost us.
Millen doesn’t miss many penalties and then after that they just sat in and had one more counter attack.
“It’s frustrating because we go bodies in the box and had a few right good chances. It’s really disappointing.”
The hosts had the better of the chances created during a lacklustre opening 45.
The best fell to Paul Willis who got on the end of a fine Kyle Wilkie cut back only to fire tamely at Willie Muir.
Within seconds Chris Duggan had an opening when he raced clear on Muir’s goal but Fife forward couldn’t get his shot on target.
In the second 45 Duggan almost capitalised on a Muir mistake but the Queen’s defence managed to prevent the forward from finding the net.
Greg Hurst was next to test Muir with an ambitious strike from range which came back off the bar. As the ball broke loose Nathan Flanagan was the first to it and his strike was tipped over the bar by the Queen’s keeper.
Then came the suckerpunch as Queen’s got their noses in front.
Hurst completely wiped out Galt as he rushed out to deal with a short Docherty passback, ref Alan Newlands pointed to the spot and set-piece expert Millen beat Hurst with ease.