ONE of Queen’s Park and Dundee looked the far more likely to return to top flight football for much of a feisty, frantic affair on Friday - and it wasn’t the team that has played in it this century.
While a sickness-hit Dark Blues struggled to click through the gears at Ochilview, it was Owen Coyle’s Spiders who moved the ball around with a slickness that seemed out of kilter with the surroundings.
That was as much down to the bravery on the ball of Dom Thomas, Malachi Boateng and Alex Bannon - playing with all the forcefulness of a hurricane - as it was Dundee’s own sheepishness, but Gary Bowyer’s men did eventually build up ahead of steam.
This was only after Tommy Robson had scored a fine goal to make it 2-1 on the night, with the full back left to lament his team’s retreat into their own half for the final half hour.
“All the boys are sat in there and no one is talking,” he said in the aftermath of Derick Osei’s late leveller. “It shows how far Queen’s Park have come as a club. Drawing with Dundee 2-2 and the whole squad is not happy.
“It was a good feeling when I scored, but when you are defending for 30 minutes straight, it’s tiring. It’s one of them where you know you are going to concede chances.
“We played so well in the first-half. We got the ball down well and moved it. We didn’t do that enough in the second-half. That’s where the pressure came from.”
The real oddity of it all is trying to put Queen’s Park’s recent meteoric rise into some sort of box. Is it really a fairytale if they remain the country’s third-most successful cup team of all-time (albeit only Jacob Rees-Mogg can remember those triumphs, won when football was all moustaches and Victorian sensibilities)?
In any case, none of the current iteration - probably not even their parents - were alive when the Spiders last played in Scotland’s top tier. You have to go all the way back to 1957/58 for that and it’s even longer since they finished ahead of Dundee (1937/38).
“A lot of people wrote us off at the start of the season, with us keeping a similar squad from last,” Robson continued. “In training and knowing the boys, I know we have got it in us to be successful this season.
“Every club this season has gone on a run, then on a bad run, then back on a run. You find that a lot in the Championship. Teams that go on the run for the longest are usually the ones who start to take it away.
“The club can go as far as it wants. I’ve seen it in the training ground and the stadium is not far from being built. There’s a lot of work going on in the academy side of things, too.”
From a Dundee perspective, this felt more like a point gained rather than two dropped, such was their sluggishness in the opening hour. That’s been symptomatic of a season that’s already seen them beat Ayr United, lose to Cove Rangers, and do so well at Ibrox against Rangers in the cup.
“It shows big character from the team,” said goalscorer Osei, a former French youth international. “At half time, the gaffer spoke to us and we were hungry to get back on the pitch and show what we could do.
“It’s a great feeling, and I am happy to score my first goal for the club. Hopefully, that’s just the start.”
One major downside for the Dee was the loss of Zach Robinson - arguably their best player - to illness midway through the first-half.
When asked if he hoped this could spark a run for him in the team, Osei said: “It is up to the gaffer. I have to do the job. We are frustrated with Zach going off. Hopefully, he will recover well. We need him. He’s an important player for the team.”
