East Fife 0-1 Queen's Park

Greg Hurst gets his shot away as East Fife try to break down Queen's. Picture by Dave Scott.

It was by no means a bad performance and there were a lot more positives to take from it than the Raith game, but it was three points lost exactly the same.

Despite East Fife creating plenty of chances and having the bulk of the play, the only stat that matters will show Queen's won 1-0 thanks to a Ross Millen penalty.

Darren Young refused to make wholesale changes from the side which went down 5-0 to the Rovers.

Mark Hurst, signed on loan following that defeat, was brought in for Ryan Goodfellow while Scott Linton was handed a start at the expense of Kieran Millar.

The game lacked any real spark for most of the first half with the home side enjoying the best of what was created.

Paul Willis had his shot from eight yards blocked by Willie Muir while Chris Duggan also went close.

East Fife went for the throat again as soon as the second half kicked off with Greg Hurst hitting the crossbar before Nathan Flanagan's drive stung Muir's fingertips.

The visitors were chasing their first win of the new league season and went some way to securing it completely out of the blue.

Mark Docherty was short with a back pass to Mark Hurst and David Galt tried to take full advantage.

But as he raced in on Hurst's goal the Fife 'keeper wiped him out leaving ref Alan Newlands with the simple task of pointing to the spot.

Millen doesn't miss much from the penalty mark and there was no exception on Saturday afternoon as he rolled his strike past the Fife no 1.

the last thing you want to do is give Queen's a lead, with Gus MacPherson's side notoriously difficult to break down when they have something to hold onto

The Fifers introduced Jonathan Page from the bench in an attempt to add more of a physical presence up front but East Fife just couldn't break down the Spiders.

Boss Young said: “It’s frustrating because we go bodies in the box and had a few right good chances.

“We got Jonathan Page on, pushed him forward, and tried to get more balls into the box.

“From some reason we then started passing it side to side when we had to bigger guy up front.

“Any number of our players had enough chances to either get us back into the game or score to take us into the lead."