DUNDEE 1, KILMARNOCK 2
ON the weekend when the clocks went back and with Halloween fast approaching, Kilmarnock resolutely refused to step back in time and successfully exorcised the ghosts of their most abject performance of the season.
A powerful header from Josh Magennis in the first half and a sweetly-struck Stevie Smith 20-yarder in the second condemned Dundee to defeat, despite Rhys Healey halving the deficit late on. The result continued the visitors’ recent impressive revival and extracted a measure of revenge for the 4-0 home thrashing Gary Locke’s side suffered when the sides met in Ayrshire on the season’s opening day.
That scarring encounter, one in which Kilmarnock were lucky to get nil, proved to be a harbinger of things to come, with Locke the target of the fans’ ire after a dreadful early-season run of results and performances. But the committed and creative football being played by this Kilmarnock team is scarcely recognisable from the brittle and toothless displays of the opening weeks.
The warning signs were there for Paul Hartley’s side from the earliest moments. After six minutes, Magennis slid a pass in behind Dundee’s static rearguard and keeper Scott Bain had to block bravely at the feet of Greg Kiltie. Dundee centre-half James McPake then cynically handled after misjudging the bounce and panicking that Magennis would have a clear run on goal.
Neither fair means nor foul could prevent Kilmarnock opening the scoring on nine minutes, however. Kallum Higginbotham jinked into the Dundee box, feinted to cross with his left foot and then swivelled back on to his right and hung up a delicious cross to the back post.
Magennis climbed above his Dundee marker and steered an eight-yard header beyond Bain’s despairing reach for his fourth league goal of the season.
On the half-hour, a quickly-taken free-kick sent Greg Stewart, a scorer against this opposition in that first-day victory, scampering into the heart of the visitors’ penalty box but his curling 15-yard shot flashed past Jamie MacDonald’s right-hand post.
As half-time loomed, a slick training-ground routine saw Higginbotham drill a corner into the path of the onrushing Conrad Balatoni but the defender’s shot ballooned high and wide. A second goal was no more than Kilmarnock’s performance merited after it duly arrived just three minutes into the second period.
A jinking run from Rory McKenzie ended with the winger teeing up Stevie Smith and the veteran defender arrowed a 20-yard shot into Bain’s bottom left-hand corner. Balatoni then saw his low effort, from a Higginbotham corner, hacked off the line by a Dundee boot.
Hartley had thrown on Paul McGowan for Gary Harkins and introduced Nicky Low in Kane Hemmings’ place early in the second half. McGowan, in particular, made a difference. His scampering and promptings were stretching the Kilmarnock defence and, after a short corner routine, his back-post cross was headed home by Rhys Healey, the young Dens striker on loan from Cardiff.
With just over quarter of an hour to salvage a point, Dundee pressed and it took a great late save from MacDonald, tipping Paul McGinn’s header over the crossbar, to ensure full points for the visitors.
Reflecting on his side’s fourth league win out of six, and on their progress since losing to Dundee on the opening day, Kilmarnock boss Gary Locke said: “The way we started the season wasn’t good enough, we all know that, but I always maintained that, once the new signings got settled in, people would see we are not a bad side and I think we are showing that now.
“We made it a bit hard for ourselves in the last 15 minutes but I was delighted with how we played for the 75 minutes before that. Stevie Smith is well capable of goals like that, with the quality he has in his left foot.”
Disappointed Dundee boss Hartley admitted: “We were flat right from the start, I don’t know where that came from. We lifted things near the end and looked dangerous but you can’t play like that for 60 minutes and expect to win games.”
Dundee: Bain, McGinn, McPake, Meggatt (Gadzhalov 46), Holt, Stewart, Harkins (McGowan 52), Ross, Hemmings (Low 52), Loy, Healey.
Subs Not Used: Irvine,Konrad,Calder,Gourlay.
Booked: Meggatt, Holt, Ross, Stewart.
Kilmarnock: MacDonald, O'Hara, Findlay, Balatoni, McHattie, Smith, Slater, McKenzie (Robinson 78), Kiltie (Obadeyi 63), Higginbotham, Magennis (Boyd 67).
Subs Not Used: Ridgers, Hamill, Westlake, Ashcroft.
Booked: Magennis,Higginbotham,Smith.
Att: 4,970
Ref: Andrew Dallas
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