Livi ready to sting Thistle

Feb 26 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

PAUL Hegarty has spent this week picking up his shattered squad of the Almondvale floor.

The manager’s gutted Lions have dominated both St Johnstone and Dundee in parts of each of their last two games but they have left Perth and Tayside with nothing to show for it.

A completely dominant first-half by Livi at Dens Park on Saturday was followed by a second-half collapse.

And the Livingston boss admits he has been trying to restore his players fragile confidence.

He revealed: “St Johnstone drew again at the weekend but our main concern at the moment is not the results of other teams but is purely trying to get our team back into a winning mentality.

“It is hard to take after the players played so well in the first 45 against St Johnstone.

“Indeed it was the same against Dundee but we came out of both games with nothing to show for our efforts.

“The players have to realise that the game will last 90 minutes and form has to be maintained throughout.

“No team has the divine right to dominate an entire match but what we are looking for is a better level of consistency throughout the 90 minutes.

“Every team will enjoy a dominant spell in a game and that’s normal for football but when that happens to us we seem to be punished severely.

“We were very disappointed about the result on Saturday as we played so well in the first-half and should have been well ahead.

“We had two or three crucial misses which at the end of the day cost us the game and three points.

“The players, however, know that and instead of being well out of the game the Dundee players must have been thinking it was their birthday getting in at half-time level.

“However, they then came out with all guns blazing and did what we didn’t do and took their chances and punished us.”

Frenchman Armand One had a hat-trick of first-half opportunities to draw first blood for the Lions against the Dark Blues and Hegarty admits his striker was gutted at not having given his side the lead before the break.

He continued: “Armand was distraught after the game and he realised he missed some good chances. But we have to rally the troops round and that's what we did.

“Monday was a wee bit subdued on the training ground but we’ve got them going again.

“It is my job to try and restore confidence and one of the great things about football is there is always another game to try and put things right and that's what we’ve got to do on Saturday.

“Up until the last couple of games we’ve been picking up points pretty consistently but it hasn’t happened recently for us.

“It’s the same players here and there is such a thin line between success and failure. We’ve got to make sure when we do dictate games we take our chances and do our best not to let teams into it.”

The major plus point in Livi’s trip to Tayside was the performance of Italian gunslinger Rafaelle De Vita.

In only his second competitive outing, both of which have come as substitutes, De Vita scored ending a long period of rehabilitation after suffering a cruciate ligament injury in pre-season.

Hegarty said: “I was pleased to see Rafa get on the scoresheet and he’s come back a wee bit earlier than I thought he would.

“It is maybe a good thing for him as instead of edging back in bounce games he’s gone in at the deep end. He did reasonably well in Perth but he did really well on Saturday where he was lively and sharp and got the goal.

“It’s time for players to stand up and be counted and Rafa is definitely in contention for this weekend.”

Next up for Livi are second placed Partick Thistle but Hegarty insists he is more interested in his own side than the Jags.

“Ian McCall has worked at the top level in the SPL and he has done well with Partick,” continued Hegarty.

“It will be a tough game but to be honest they aren’t my concern.

“We’ve had them watched and expect a tough game but my priority is seeing how we respond to last week and we have to get a reaction from the team.”