By Graeme Dey

In the course of serving his apprenticeship, Bairns midfielder Patrick Cregg rubbed shoulders with some of the top talent in the English Premiership.

He insists none of the Arsenal stars he trained and played alongside are better than veteran Trinidad and Tobago midfielder Russell Latapy, who turned in another inspirational performance as Falkirk maintained their 100% start to the campaign at the expense of Dunfermline.

“Russell is—natural ability wise—one of the best players I’ve trained with,” said the 20-year-old Dubliner. “Even down at Arsenal he’d fit in easily.

“I played in the first team there and trained with them regularly for six months and he is as good as anyone they’ve got.

“Two weeks ago we played Norwich and one of the passes he played with the outside of his left peg was just magic. I’ve not played with another player who could do that.

“His touches are fantastic as is his awareness and I’m learning so much from him. Please God he stays on as long as possible.”

It wasn’t just the quality of performance from Latapy, who turned 38 last week, which was so impressive. His willingness to work back and help out defensively was just as eye catching.

“Russell is in great shape and he’s just a joy to work with,” said boss John Hughes.

“I don’t think we’ll continue to get the full 90 minutes out of him.

“When the sun’s out and the pitches are nice and lush he wants to play but come Christmas time he dips a bit.

“Fortunately, however, we’ve got young boys like Patrick Cregg and Liam Craig emerging and wanting to take on his mantle.”

Latapy created the only goal of the game after 10 minutes when his measured cross found Darren Barr, who’d shrugged off marker Stephen Simmons, and he bulleted a header past Roddy McKenzie.

That counter was scant reward for a dominant first-half performance from the Bairns yet their lack of ruthlessness might have left them trailing at the break.

Second best Dunfermline might have been, but they spurned a couple of glorious opportunities with Mark Burchill blazing over after being set up by Simmons, and Simmons himself being denied by a smashing Scott Higgins save before Burchill latched on to the loose ball and picked out stand-in striker Freddie Daquin, only for the Frenchman’s header to clear the bar by some distance.

Following the interval the Pars came much more into the game and Burchill wasted another opening after Simmons nodded on a Gary Mason cross for him.

Yet on a day when referee Craig Thomson and his assistants Gary Sweeney and Billy Baxter produced some frankly baffling decisions, Falkirk were denied a clear cut penalty—Sol Bamba tugged back Pedro Moutinho in clear view of the ref —and would have felt sorely aggrieved by any result other than the one they obtained.

It’s been an encouraging opening to the campaign from the Bairns, who have never before survived two successive seasons in the top flight, but management and players alike are realistic in their ambitions.

“We’re not going to get carried away,” said Cregg. “Our objective remains just to stay in the league.’’

Dunfermline’s injury woes continue. Already without Scott Thomson, Jim McIntyre, Scott Morrison, Aaron Labonte and Noel Whelan, they lost Greg Shields with a twisted knee after just 15 minutes and later had Phil McGuire limp off.

“It isn’t easy with the injury problems we are having to contend with but we got through the same sort of thing last year although I just hope the fitness situation won’t turn out to be quite as bad this time,” said midfielder Mason who donned the captain’s armband following Shields’ departure.

“We can play better than we did today but even at that we still managed to create three or four decent chances and on another day might have won the game.

“We can’t get too down on ourselves. They’d a lot of the ball in the first-half but we had the majority of possession in the second.”

Boss Jim Leishman said, “We’ve just got to keep plodding away in the knowledge that once we get the boys back from injury we will have a decent squad.

“I also hope to bring another couple of players in, though it’s likely to be the week after next before that happens.”