Crighton – We’ll keep chipping away

SEAN CRIGHTON couldn’t be prouder of yet another performance filled with desire and commitment fromm his Queen’s Park side as they dug out a point in Perth against league leaders St Johnstone.

Eight points from the month of March has seen the Spiders scale the William Hill Championship table – even as high as fifth.

That’s led to inevitable questions on further progress but the head coach insists focus is firmly on the job he set out at the start of the season, following Saturday’s early afternoon draw.

He said: “For me it’s about making sure we’re safe and in the Championship next year. That’s been my job this year. Anything else is an absolute bonus but we need to keep chipping away and picking points up. 

“We’ve had a good month in March losing just once against a very good Arbroath side. But it’s credit to my group – we are down to the bare bones.

“I had three 16-year-olds on my bench and I have said that since I started – if they’re doing well in their groups, whether its 19s or 17s, they’ll get opportunities and especially now because we are down to the bare bones.”

Adding to the injury list was Euan Murray, forced off early in the second half, and Crighton praised the skipper’s contribution.

“I had to take my captain off because he’s struggling a bit but that’s because he like the rest of them, are giving me everything.

“Euan hasn’t trained much this week but he’s a warrior and stepped up with a goal. That’s why i chose him as my leader because I knew that’s what I’d get from him.

“We have a wee break now. Hopefully all the guys get to recover and hopefully we have a few players back by [April 10 vs Ross County].”

Murray’s issue led to a re-shuffle that saw vice-captain Louis Longridge step in as skipper and centre-half, but the tactical tweaks worked to take a point from the long-time league leaders in the William Hill Championship.

The Spiders even started with a back three and Roddy MacGregor at wing-back.

Crighton explained: “I played Roddy out on the right in the first half in a position he’s never played before.

“I had a chat with him during the week and told him to be as tight as you can [to Josh McPake], always make him go to the outside and not inside. I thought he was excellent.

“It was backs to the wall stuff in the second half, but I knew it would be.
We got ahead in the game and i thought we deserved it, I thought we were good for what we’d been doing.

“We executed the game plan as I wanted us to. It was a really good first half and they came out in the second half as I knew they would do, but it’s overall a good point.

“I don’t think Calum Ferrie has had loads to do in terms of saves but I go back to my group – they have been absolutely magnificent at defending the box. There haven’t been many occasions when they haven’t done their jobs properly and if that has been the case we’ve tried to fix it.

“The desire I’ve got in the group is there in abundance and you can see that in every game we play.”