Sad Clyde are swept aside by Pars

Published on Saturday 21 March 2009 19:02

Clyde 1 (MacLennan 38) Dunfermline 4 (Phinn 4, 62; Woods 37, Burke 51)

DUNFERMLINE followed up their cup heroics of midweek with an easy win over relegation haunted Clyde to ensure they remain among the promotion contenders. On the surface Jim McIntyre's Pars may appear to be a long way off the pace, but if they can win their games in hand they will be back challenging at the top end of a division their financially stricken hosts will be lucky to survive in beyond the remaining six games.

The Fifers were comfortable winners, riding the feelgood factor of Wednesday night's Scottish Cup replay triumph at Pittodrie which set up a semi-final clash at Hampden with Falkirk.

The gulf in quality between the two teams was there for all to see after only four minutes, Nicky Phinn finding acres of space six yards out to nod home. Defensively Clyde were all over the place, failing to stop crosses coming into the box and unable to deal with them when called upon to do so. However it took until seven minutes before the break before Calum Woods doubled the advantage with a classy finish at the end of a scrumptious passing move.

Clyde's Ruari MacLennan halved the deficit seconds later with his team's first shot on target, courtesy of tucking away a bouncing ball following a Paul Gallacher error. Any unrealistic hopes the home fans may have harboured about getting back into the game were rightly dashed on 51 minutes as some mind-bogglingly bad defending presented Alex Burke with a chance he was never going to miss.

By now it was a stroll in the spring sunshine for the Pars who again profited from the ineptitude of the home rearguard to plunder a fourth, Phinn once more the man on target. With their team a shambles and seemingly plummeting towards Division Two the home fans made prolonged calls for manager John Brown to be dismissed.