Gus piles praise on his Buddies

Oct 6 2008 by Robert O'Neill, Paisley Daily Express

BEAMING Buddies boss Gus MacPherson last night saluted his Love Street battlers for the way they defended in yesterday’s 1-0 SPL win over title-chasing Rangers.

MacPherson reckoned every one of his players deserved a share of the credit for the way they kept the door shut against Walter Smith’s men.

MacPherson said: “You have got to earn any three points you get at this level.

“I think the effort and the commitment the players showed for long periods, in the first half, gave us something to build on. And we said at half time that for the next 10 or 15 minutes we were going to get put under pressure and we just had to defend properly.

“We felt we did that and I think we came in for some criticism last week because of the way we did defended set pieces but I thought today, although we had a wee bit of luck as well, we defended set pieces superbly.”

MacPherson, surprisingly, went with a three-man defence yesterday and hailed the display of Scott Cuthbert, John Potter and fit-again Saint Will Haining.

MacPherson said: “I thought the three of them defended well and if we kept possession in the final third we would have caused Rangers more problems because we were getting decent balls into the box in the first half, especially.

“And we were trying to get support from the middle of the park and tell Andy Dorman and Garry Brady that when the opportunity arose to get forward – and they did that in the first half.”

But MacPherson reserved the majority of the credit to goal-scoring hero Stephen McGinn, who scored with a lovely left-foot shot with 16 minutes remaining.

MacPherson said: “It was an outstanding goal and we know what Stephen is capable of. He’s a very talented youngster and he’s scored some important goals for us in his short St Mirren career but he showed great composure.

“There were a few people wanting him to pass it to Craig Dargo because he made an excellent run and he was looking for the ball but Stephen really just passed it into the far corner and we had a great view of it. It was a fantastic finish and it was going in all the way.”

He said: “Nobody likes being bottom but people didn’t believe us when we said we didn’t care about it at the moment because its all about putting three points on the board and we’ve done that and that's the most important thing.”