John Potter praises ‘incredible’ effort from Kelty Hearts after hard-fought draw at Falkirk

John Potter said Kelty Hearts’ 0-0 draw at the Falkirk Stadium wasn’t a vintage performance, but he was delighted with the players’ effort.

Falkirk controlled possession and forced a few saves out of Darren Jamieson but overall it was a solid defence display from Kelty.

Callumn Morrison was Falkirk’s main threat and the tricky forward had a goal disallowed for offside and appeared to be denied a good shout for a penalty.

It has been a tough run of results for Potter’s men in recent times and they hope to use this display to kick on between now and the end of the campaign.

“The effort was incredible,” said Potter. “Can we play better? Yeah. Can we be better with the ball? Yeah.

“The guys have been out all day working, and to come to a place like Falkirk that are a top team, to come and work as hard as they did and get a clean sheet… it was a difficult night to get the ball and pass it but I’m delighted with how we worked.

“Earlier games against Falkirk, when we managed to get the ball back we were quite ruthless. That’s how we managed to win those games. Tonight, we probably weren’t as ruthless, but in terms of being compact and hard to beat, we were great. We probably missed that the last four or five weeks.

“We had to shore up a little bit, against a good team with good players.”

Thomson solid

There was specific praise from the manager for Jason Thomson, who returned from injury in last week’s defeat to Montrose.

He played at centre-back alongside Tam O’Ware and the pair were a big part of the clean sheet.

“He’s hardly trained,” added Potter. I dropped him into centre-back and I thought he was brilliant.

“He defends the box we’ll, he’s the right type of person who can help, a calming influence as well.

“Hopefully he can continue that from now until the end of the season.”

Falkirk manager John McGlynn was disappointed with his side’s lack of end product.

He was also unhappy with the decision to deny his side a second-half penalty.

“I think we’ve dominated a game as much all season, but it’s what you do at the end of it,” said the Falkirk boss.

“We’ve got in behind them umpteen times.

“I’ve not seen it back but I thought we had a stonewall penalty when Callumn Morrison is pushed over in the box.

“We’ve never had a break in these situations.”