Dumbarton 1-2 East Fife: Boss Greig McDonald hails 'battling qualities' of team after League Two win

Greig McDonald’s men had only previously picked up four wins all campaign long before the triumph at The Rock, with the Fifers rooted in mid-table after a stuttering opening half to their league season.

But thanks to goals in each half from Kieran Millar and Brogan Walls, East Fife are now ten points behind the fourth-placed Sons as they look to make an unlikely promotion play-off push having looked down and out not so long ago.

“The guys are fighting and giving everything,” boss McDonald told East Fife TV afterwards. “It is a great start to the New Year taking four points from two away games and I couldn’t be happier with the group.

"Some people would have probably thought ‘here we go again’ (when Dumbarton equalised but we played that next five minutes well and used our experience. We took a couple of fouls and played in the right area. In the end we could have won by more. We counter-attacked well and we knew that we would need to do that. Dumbarton are a strong side but we stood up to that.”

McDonald also revealed that once again a number of key players were suffering from the flu beforehand and during the game, with a number of stars having barely trained in the lead up to the match.

He added when speaking about the possibility of the game actually being postponed due to the frozen patches on the surface: “If I felt that it was really dangerous then I would have made my feelings known to him but the referee (Duncan Williams) did think it was playable.

"The conditions didn’t suit us as a team but we got the right balance today in terms of when to pass the ball and when to just put our boot through it. The guys showed battling qualities and we put our bodies on the line. It was easy for me to say it after a win but we did still have to deal with this flu that is going around; Nathan Austin hadn’t trained all week. Connor McManus had only trained once.”