Tony Docherty ‘absolutely delighted’ to see Dundee reap rewards against Hearts

Posted Monday, August 28, 2023 by PA

Tony Docherty admitted he was delighted his players finally reaped the rewards all their hard work deserved as they picked up their first cinch Premiership win of the season.

Luke McCowan scored the only goal of the game for the Dark Blues in the second half against Hearts with a sublime lobbed finish at Kilmac Stadium.

The 25-year-old scored a similar goal in pre-season but this time it really counted, securing all three points.

Docherty said: “It doesn’t surprise me with Luke.

“He did it pre-season against Fleetwood Town from further out.

“Luke McCowan typifies the type of player I have in that changing room.

“I am really pleased for him but more pleased for the squad in terms of they got their rewards today for all the hard work they put in.

“I am absolutely delighted and it was no more than the players deserve as we put in a lot of hard work in the last couple of weeks on the training ground.

“We had a game plan and I thought the players carried that out to the letter. I thought we were worthy of our win.”

There was confusion before kick-off with McCowan originally named in the starting line-up with Josh Mulligan on the bench.

New team sheets were then released with the duo swapping positions but just before kick-off, McCowan was back in the team with Mulligan as a substitute.

However, Docherty played down the mix-up.

He added: “There was something happened before the game.

“You can put that down to human error. It was human error, that’s all I am saying.”

Hearts technical director Steven Naismith did not pull his punches in his assessment of his side’s performance.

“We weren’t good enough today. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

“I don’t think we deserved much out of the game. We are fortunate at half-time to be 0-0, we never really caused them many problems and they caused us more problems.

“That’s a reflection of the first half. We needed to make three changes which did make an impact.

“For 15 to 20 minutes we caused them loads of problems, but I felt we went away from what was getting us good situations. We went away from that and started making the wrong pass.

“Ultimately it’s a poor day, we don’t get anything from the game.

“As the game wore on I thought Dundee saw the game out well. They made passes at the right time, frustrated us.

“We were powder puff towards the end and that’s never going to get you anything.”