Crawford hails Pars’ ‘character and guts’

STEVIE Crawford hailed his Dunfermline side’s “character, guts and commitment” after seeing a remarkable late comeback rescue a point from what looked like defeat at Dundee.

Crawford admits his side were second best for the majority of the contest as they trailed 3-0 at Dens Park before sparking an unlikely resurgence with 12 minutes left on the clock.

Crawford was particularly delighted with his frontman Declan McManus’ efforts throughout the 90 minutes.

The Dunfermline boss said: “Declan was working tirelessly up front on his own and we tried to get Kyle Turner up towards him but Dundee had a foothold on the game.

“I’m not going to take anything away from them.

“Can we complain about being three down? Probably not.

“It’ll be a sore one for James (McPake) to take because they definitely took the game to us and took advantage of a heavy pitch.

“We made a decision to go with a 4-1-3-2 to get Kevin O’Hara up with Declan and it brought us to life.

“Declan stuck away the penalty well and it was a great free-kick to get us the point.”

The point moved Dunfermline to within three points of leaders Hearts, though the Jambos have a game in hand.

It also moved the Pars slightly further from a clutch of teams in mid-table.

Crawford added: “On the back of going out on penalty kicks against St Johnstone, to have come up here and lost wouldn’t have been as good a Christmas.

“They showed character, guts and commitment and that’s all I can ask of the players.”

Stevie Crawford