Darren Young admitted his Stirling Albion side had to dig in to bring back the winning feeling – but praised his squad’s ruthlessness in seeing off East Fife.
The Binos were offered the chance to immediately bounce back from last week’s disappointing home defeat against Annan Athletic which ended their nine-match unbeaten run and came flying out of the traps to ensure there wasn’t a repeat this time around.
But they were made to work for the win, with some heroic goalkeeping and last-ditch defending keeping the Fifers from equalising in an exciting end to the game, before Stirling sealed the points at the death.
Young recognised the challenge posed by his former employers, but was proud of his players as they cut the gap to the League 2 summit to three points.
The Albion boss said: “It was a good reaction and good to bounce back; it was a very hard-fought and close game.
“I thought we came out of the traps flying in the first 15 minutes and scored two great goals.
“It was a great start and then I think we took the foot off the pedal a wee bit and maybe sat back a bit, fair play to them because they came into the game and caused us problems but I thought we defended it well.
“There’s a couple of moments where we need to keep the ball better and that doesn’t allow us to get up the park which makes it hard to get out.
“We thought we were going to see it through to half-time but they get a ball in behind and get the cutback and from our point of view, it was a poor goal to lose on the stroke of half-time.
“We spoke to them at half-time and knew it was going to be a grind in the second half and be a bit end-to-end and it turned out that way.
“We had two or three good chances where we could’ve got the third, but then they put us under pressure and Blair [Currie] makes a great save to keep it at 2-1 and defenders are throwing themselves around to block things and clear off the line.
“We played against Albion Rovers here and battered them and drew 1-1, so while we weren’t as great today as we normally are, but we were clinical and that got us over the line.”
The manager also picked out full-back Aaron Dunsmore for special praise, after his man-of-the-match display against his former team.
Young added: “A special mention for Dunsy today, two assists and then I don’t know why he’s popped up on the left wing coming off the side to score the third goal, he was tremendous today.”
