Not up for the fight

PETER MURPHY said his Queen of the South players got exactly what they deserved against East Fife after being ‘bullied all over the park’.

Queens never got going at all at the Bayview Stadium last Saturday and lost 2-1 to the Fifers.

Tommy Goss headed home the opener for the home side before Reece Lyon pulled one back for the Doonhamers in first half added time.

But, less than a minute after the restart, Nathan Austin found the net to secure victory for the hosts.

Assessing the defeat, Queens boss Murphy said: “We didn’t deserve anything at all today, absolutely nothing. We looked like a team who came here today and thought – we are top of the league and it’s going to be easy.

“Tommy Goss was absolutely outstanding today. He scored a goal at the back post which we worked on how to deal with all week (at training).

“We got ourselves back into it out of nothing, it was one bit of quality where Reece Lyon popped up and scored.

“The second goal came from a really massive error in the first minute of the second half, and we then had a mountain to climb. We never recovered from that and we didn’t deserve anything.

“East Fife hustled, harried, won every header, every tackle and picked up second balls.

“We backed off and lowered our standards. We didn’t win battles and weren’t up for the fight. I felt we got bullied all over the park.

“I’ve had a go at the players and said – if you’ve any aspirations of getting up a division or being at the top of end of the division you need to find a way.”

On Saturday the Doonhamers entertain Inverness at Palmerston Park, Murphy added: “I’m sure the players will pick themselves up. I hope they hurt over the weekend and they realise they need to be better, which they will.

“We had a good group of fans up and I felt sorry for them after coming up and watching how we let ourselves down.

“(Inverness) will be another different game. We need to make sure we’re fully prepared and we approach it much better than we have the last two games.”