Kirkcaldy & Dysart: Delighted gaffer Craig Ness hails his troops after superb double win over league leaders Dunbar United

John Smith’s second-minute lob and Jay Bridgeford’s 38th-minute shot had the YM 2-0 up at New Countess Park on Saturday, before the hosts’ Cammy Dawson was red carded for a foul on Ryan McEwan 10 minutes into the second half.

Despite Sean Stewart netting a penalty for Dunbar on 75 minutes after a foul by Mark Wilkie which appeared to be outside the box, the YM held on to claim a 2-1 victory – they had also won 4-0 at home to Dunbar on February 25 - which now has the Fife outfit fifth in the table with 38 points from 23 games.

“It was a fantastic result for us,” delighted gaffer Ness told the Fife Free Press. “That’s obviously twice we’ve played them in the last month and we’ve taken six points from games against the runaway league leaders.

"It wasn’t the prettiest performance and we didn’t have a lot of the ball, probably 30 to 35% possession.

"But football’s about scoring goals. We took our chances when they came, we defended very well.

"If you had told me at the start of the season that we would beat Dunbar 6-1 on aggregate over the two games we would have bitten your hand off for that. We can’t grumble.

"Myself and Paul Browne (assistant manager) had worked on the players getting ourselves into a shape and being hard to break down when we didn’t have the ball, allow them the ball across the backline and then try and engage them in midfield.

"In the two games it’s worked well. There’s no doubt that Dunbar have got very good players, but we got used to handling them.

"John and Jay scored our two goals on Saturday and they both play out wide. And we kind of felt that because Dunbar push their fullbacks on that we could expose them in the wider areas.

"And that’s what we got our two goals from so I’m delighted.”

With a League Cup second round trip to Burntisland Shipyard awaiting this Saturday, the YM’s next league outing will see them visit Lochore Welfare on Saturday, April 8.