Falkirk 3-1 Dundee: Bairns silence Dundee with win

Phil Roberts, right, puts in a determined challenge on Dundee skipper Gavin Rae. Picture: SNS

John Brown left abruptly and refused to let any of his players talk to the media after a match in which they fought territorially but couldn’t cope with their opponents’ movement in attack.

Rory Loy opened the scoring after Stephen Kingsley was released by a clever Craig Sibbald pass on the left channel. The construction of the move was then echoed in the other two goals, with Loy adding a second and Falkirk’s third.

The fluidity of the play pleased Gary Holt, who was very critical of his players after last week’s 1-0 defeat at Cowdenbeath.

“I told them to go out and play football,” said the Falkirk manager. “That’s what we should be hanging our hat on. We wanted a response after last week’s performance and that is just what we got.

“I thought Rory [Loy] was absolutely hopeless. He was. He’s admitted that in the dressing room. He put his hands up and said ‘gaffer, I was poor today’. The thing was he was excellent last week and didn’t score. That’s just football.”

Dundee actually started the brighter and created two great chances in the opening ten minutes when Steven Doris shot weakly at home keeper Michael McGovern and Jim McAlister poked an effort wide.

Falkirk scored from their first meaningful attack and continually found space on the overlap to exploit a Dundee backline that could neither stop the cross nor deal with the ball into the area.

Any expectation that Dundee would sort the problem after half-time was quickly extinguished when Phil Roberts’ deflected cross from the right somehow reached Jay Fulton at the back post who squeezed a shot just over the line.

Dundee only began playing after Loy shot into the roof of the net after being set-up by Fulton.

Ryan Conroy’s effort from the left of the penalty area was heading wide before David McCracken deflected it into his own net.