By Dundeefc.net
April 24 2002

SUN 18TH SEPTEMBER 1999

Dundee 1 (Yates 10) St Johnstone 2 (Lownes 81, 83)

Douglas Smith, Maddison, Tweed, Miller Rae, McSkimming, Boyack, Yates Grady, Falconer

Subs: Matute (for Yates 85), Wilkie (for Miller 45), Annand (for Grady 65), Langfield, Van Eijs

It was a case of deja vu as Dundee lost a home game for the third time this season within the last ten minutes.

The Dee had led through Michael Yates superbly flighted curled shot in ten minutes (at least that's what he thought - Sandy Clark described it as an outrageous fluke) - his first goal for Dundee - until the last ten minutes but that all changed when Dundee presented the visitors with chances they couldn't miss. Lownes must have thought his lottery numbers had come up as he first of all flicked on a totally sclaffed shot into the net and then minutes late was standing in space when Lee Maddison gave away the ball on the edge of the Dundee box. 3000 fans in the Bobby Cox Stand were screaming "punt it" as Lee repeated the error of Steven Tweed at Tynecastle last week. Whereas Tweed's mistake made a bad result look worse this error cost Dundee a first point of the season at Dens. We never looked like coming back.

But it could have been so different if James Grady hadn't been denied by Main with the score at 1-0. Just after the half time interval the wee man was clean through on the keeper on the right side and should have scored but the former United man took great pleasure in denying the Dundee striker. Clark described it as a world class save, I would describe it as Main being a jammy bastard.

Dundee should have won this match - A goal up with ten minutes to go and with a kid (Lee Wilkie) turning in an international class display in defence it was soul destroying to watch more experienced players let him end up on the losing side. Jocky commented that the defensive display had been awful and it was hard to disagree but the big laddie wasn't to blame. The manager also told us that Dundee were clueless when going forward in the second half and he found few dissenters on that score. The comment that the manager used about the defence was that "You can't defend six yards in front of your keeper and expect him to save everything" - He's right.

Angry - everyone was! and my belief that it's not the worst team that goes down but the one which fails to cut out individual mistakes begins to gather pace. This Dundee are a better team than last years lot but football doesn't keep you up, spirit and work rate do. We're lucky that Aberdeen have made a nightmare start but we can't live on that continuing. On this showing Wilkie deserves a start and a couple of this team have made enough mistakes this term that they shouldn't start at Killie.