With the Scottish Cup trail already littered with big scalps this weekend, Peter Leven was delighted to see his side come through to the last 16 of the competition with victory over Raith Rovers.
“We’ve seen some big teams go out already, so the most important thing was to get through. I thought we started really well, scored our goal from a set play, so we were delighted with that. I thought we looked good on set plays today, in both boxes, defensive and attacking. We had to play Dante at the back there, I thought he did well, coming in at the last minute.
“After the goal and a good start overall, there were a couple of sloppy passes in the first half and then we lost a wee bit of confidence, a wee bit of nerve. It’s understandable for where we’ve been, but I thought the second half was really good, but again we’ve got to score more. We’ll take a lot from the second half but we’ve got to score the goals.
“Fair play to Raith because they had nine blocks in the box, but we need to be more clinical. We just need to be clinical in our decision making. That extra pass or a quicker shot at goal but at least we’re in there to create the opportunities. It could have been more comfortable in the end, but I’m delighted to get through.”
There were two Dons debutants on the day, loan signing Cameron Lyall starting and Mitchel Frame coming off the bench at the break. Both made impressive starts to their Aberdeen careers.
“Cameron made a good start. I thought his delivery was amazing today. You just see his quality, picking up little areas, and obviously he’ll get better the more minutes he gets, but I thought he was outstanding today. You were hoping to give it more in before today’s game. We’ve got a quality player there. You can see that today with his work ethic, his ability on the ball and I’m happy with his performance today. Someone with his ability, with more game time, he’ll make us better.
“Mitchel was excellent when he came on. He’s trained really, really well the last two weeks and as I’ve said, people who train well are given an opportunity. He’s so quick but it’s just fitting into a system because I thought at times he was coming inside a little bit more, where I wanted him to go on the outside to use his speed. I’m really pleased for him, making his debut.”
