Jim McIntyre admitted that he thought it wasn’t going to be DUNFERMLINE’S day after they failed to convert chance after chance against Arbroath, writes Lars Niven.

The manager was left shaking his head at half-time during this Alba Challenge Cup encounter with the Lichties at East End Park.

It wasn’t until striker Andy Kirk’s unstoppable shot in the 59th minute that the Pars broke the deadlock.

Arbroath were well organised, posed a threat up front and could have levelled the match late on, having staged a fight-back.

McIntyre said, “We put in some amount of crosses in the first half and we weren’t getting any joy from them.

“We hit the keeper a couple of times and you do start to think, but you’ve got to keep believing and getting into the right areas.”

Arbroath nearly nicked a goal in the opening minutes when Mark McCulloch sliced through the Fifers’ defence and cut the ball back for Steve Hislop.

The striker missed the ball, which ran to Steven Doris, whose shot was charged down.

Dunfermline piled down the wings and Stephen Glass sent in some telling crosses.

Kirk, Graham Bayne, Willie Gibson, Chris Higgins and David Graham forced saves from Darren Hill before Kirk’s goal.

Dunfermline began to dominate and stretched their lead in the 68th minute when Steven Bell headed home a Glass corner.

John McGlashan’s men fought back, with substitute Jamie Redman—on for Paul Watson— thumping the ball past Greg Fleming from close range.

The game boiled over late on, when a melee developed in the Pars box. Ian Dobbins was red- carded for an altercation with Austin McCann and Alan Rattray was booked for pushing.

A relieved McIntyre said, “I’m happy we won the game.

“We should have scored another couple, I felt, with some of the deliveries into the box and some of the chances, but then we shot ourselves in the foot a wee bit.

“We gave them a goal and that gave them a lift, you could see that.”

Of Andy Kirk’s goal, he said, “Fantastic—that’s Kirkie.

“He wasn’t in the game a lot up until then, but he’s a natural goalscorer and he can just come up with that.

“He’s probably the only player in our team who can.”

McGlashan told his players in the run-up to the game to give a good account of themselves.

“I thought we did that today,” he said.

“To come from two-nil down, get a goal back and then put Dunfermline under a bit of pressure in the last phase of the game —for a part-time team in the second division, I was delighted to see that.

“There was one header near the end where I thought (we were) going to score and that would have made it two-all and that would have been an interesting end to the game.”

Arbroath face Dundee tonight (KO 7.45pm). Adults £10, concessions £5.