Queens gaffer Peter Murphy is keeping his feet firmly on the ground despite moving to the top of League One.

Goals from Lewis O’Donnell and Mikey Hewitt were enough for the Doonhamers to see off Dumbarton to maintain their unbeaten run at home.

Manager Murphy said: “We are delighted to be top of the league, but I’m frustrated about the games we’ve lost in the first quarter.

“We lost one – nil against Montrose and Inverness so we will need to look back at them.

Peter Murphy thanks the fans at the end of the match
Peter Murphy thanks the fans at the end of the match

“We are just one game away from the end of the first quarter, so it’s a good start and obviously to be top of the table at this moment in time is excellent, given we are still building a squad and we haven’t had all our players available.

“So, it’s a good start, but it’s a long season and if you’re top at the end of the season that is where you want to be, but we’re nowhere near that yet”.

The home side made the breakthrough just before the quarter hour mark and sealed the win early in the second half, making it a less nervy afternoon for the boss, who said: “I think it was a very comfortable day apart from a spell in the first half where I think we got a bit slack with the passing.

“We gave them an opportunity to come into the game. We addressed that at half time, and I thought we were absolutely outstanding in the second half and restricted them to a couple of counter attacks here and there, but just the manner in which we played and passed was an improvement for me, looking at how we’re developing as a team from earlier on this season”.

“At East Kilbride, they went down to ten men, and we got sucked into going long instead of killing it off. But today we killed off the game because we just kept the ball. So, it is really positive to see that progression, but we would have liked to score a lot more goals”.

Josh Walker controls the ball
Josh Walker controls the ball

And he addressed questions about a lack of goals in previous games: “We put more crosses into the box, and we scored on a second phase where the ball was picked up on the edge of the box and we scored from it.

“I think we put about eight crosses in the box in the first half that caused them problems which gives us set pieces and throw-ins and allows us to maintain a little bit of pressure. We did start to make mistakes and went through a little bit of a rocky period, which is good to see that we got through it mentally, but we could be better”.

He added: “I just feel sorry for Leighton McIntosh, he’s had a few opportunities to score but it didn’t happen for him. I said to the players afterwards, that strikers go through little periods where maybe they don’t score, but if they keep going, keep getting into the right positions they’ll get to a point where everything they’ll hit goes in.

“Hopefully that’s the case with Leighton, he is devastated and feels like he’s let the team down. But I thought he led the line well and linked the play to get us up the park, getting people running off him.

“He just needs to get up to pace, Kai Kennedy missed a bit of pre-season, but he has got up to speed and look at how is playing now”.

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