´óÏó´«Ã½

Annan manager Harry Cairney has seen his side's six-match unbeaten run come to an end. Photograph: SNS
I have been asking myself if fatigue might have been an issue as, especially in the first half, the boys were very flat and we struggled to get going.

Personally I felt a bit sluggish and have wondered whether I should have spoken to the manager before kick-off. I did feel better in the second half and didn't think I played badly, but I think you have to be honest with yourself and do what's best for the team.

We have played a lot of football recently but no-one wants to be out the side, and I especially didn't want to be left out because I felt a bit lethargic.

Although it's possibly more to do with the fact that I'm in my 32 year, I think not training on Thursday may have affected me also.

After a hard 90 minutes against I should probably have done something on my own since I wasn't going to be training with the boys.

My job is very active and I'm in and out the gym all day every day, but you have to look after yourself and recover properly. Looking back, perhaps I didn't do that and this contributed to how I felt during that first half against Queen's Park.

After all that, I think deserve a bit of credit for their performance and they are hitting form at just the right time.

We have altered our formation in our last three matches against them and, for whatever reason, I didn't think it worked for us at the weekend. They have a lot of attack-minded players in their team and we lost a lot of our attacking options trying to nullify that threat.

They played an almost perfect game, as far as I'm concerned. They put us under a lot of pressure in the first half and scored right on half-time, meaning they could sit back and hit us on the break; which is exactly what they did with their second goal close to full time.

The good thing for us is that we've no time to worry about that match as we're in action again tonight when we visit Stranraer.

I mentioned last week about how big this game was and the significance has certainly increased since the weekend. and trying to catch the team directly above us, but in all honesty I've been looking down as well just to keep an eye on what's going on at the bottom.

Stranraer have three games in hand on us so a victory is vital tonight and the recent improvements at Montrose (who we play twice in the coming weeks) has seen them draw level on points with Elgin.

It's starting to get a little too close for comfort for my liking so we need a performance on Wednesday night, no question.

I'd just like to finish with a little mention of at the weekend. It was an extraordinary game. In a game that Saints dominated for about an hour it was almost criminal that they came away with losers' medals.

Through experience I know that it can be difficult to play against a team that has had players sent off. We actually lost a cup final to Whitehill Welfare after they were reduced to nine men, but I never expected it at that level on Sunday.

St Mirren seemed to become void of ideas in the last 20 minutes and incredibly Rangers became the better side and scored a great goal through Kenny Miller on the break.

Surely questions should be asked as to why they were caught three on two at the back with two extra players? Our manager, Harry Cairney, would be pulling his hair out if that happened to us with 11 men never mind nine - well, what hair he has left anyway!