The Fir Park faithful were cheered by the appearance of Twaddle, Leitch and Lasley at the warm up. The talk though the week of their niggling injuries may have been a smokescreen.
Terry leads the warm up this afternoon
We started brightly and Elliott soon stamped his authority on proceedings. While the Pars had plenty of possession throughout the match they rarely troubled Brown and we looked more comfortable breaking from defence and using pace on either wing.
In ten minutes a glorious run from Stuarty ended when he fired against the post. Soon after a fine run by Corrigan on the right wing ended up with a tempting ball flashing across the goal as three 'Well players tried to get the killing touch.
Then. In fifteen minutes, we got what proved to be the winner. Greg Strong scored his second of the season from a cross to the back post. It seemed that from his acute angle he would have to head back across the goalmouth, but in went the header and we were one up.
In truth the Pars never looked like gaining the equaliser - though we managed a few scary moments in the last ten minutes of the game.
Dunfermline threw four up front but we countered by bringing on Forrest and having five at the back. As they pressed we managed a few chances late on but eventually we were relieved when the final whistle sounded.
Many good performances were on show. Captain Leitch drew praise from his happy manager at the end of the match, "a wonderful captain's performance".
Once again Elliott, Lasley and Pearson had good games and there were no passengers. Twaddle got twenty minutes of football under his belt and will have to work on increasing his sharpness after his several week's recovery. All in all it was a good team show and we move up a place in the table and are now ten points clear of the bottom.