ATHLETIC manager James McPake said that the hype surrounding his team's midweek win at Peterhead was "pointless" had they not returned home with a victory.

The Pars headed to Balmoor to play League One's bottom side, in a fixture rearranged following a postponement last month, with a chance of sealing the title and promotion.

For that to happen, they needed to pick up three points and hope that Falkirk, second in the table, 11 points behind the leaders, at the start of play, didn't when they took on Montrose.

Following a difficult opening period, in which McPake said that the wind made it tricky for his players, Nikolay Todorov and Craig Wighton scored the goals in the second half to give them a 2-0 win, and extend their unbeaten league run to 20 matches.

READ MORE: Pars one win from League One title after Blue Toon victory

However, with their closest challengers also winning, 2-1 at Links Park, it meant that Dunfermline will have to wait for the chance to be crowned champions.

After the game, though, McPake was simply pleased to come away with all three points, commenting: "I don't want to blame the wind for certain things in the first half, but you saw in the second half just how hard it hampered Peterhead as well.

"It was tough out there. It was going straight down the middle of the pitch, one side to the other. Second half, I wouldn't say we were wasteful in terms of the chances, because we had a good go at it.

"We got in the right areas, and we could've come out with four or five at the end, but it was all about the three points.

"All the talk, all the hype, surrounding this game – it was all pointless unless we won it anyway. We had to come up here and win.

"We wanted to get back to winning ways, we wanted to add to that unbeaten run as well, and we've done both of them."

Reflecting on the "tough conditions", and the "very professional" performance his side produced, McPake said: "I wouldn't say Peterhead played the conditions better in the first half; they just had the conditions. We showed when we had the conditions, it was different, and it was really tough to play in, but it was the same for both teams.

"You've got to manage it. Both teams had a lot to play for tonight, with their position in the league, our position in the league, so it was a tough game in terms of that, just the energy surrounding the game, everything surrounding the game, for us and for them.

"They had a great result on Saturday, and they were looking to get another result to take them off the bottom of the league.

"It was a tough game, tough first half, and very professional, in my opinion. It was never going to be pretty; when we turned up here, and we saw the weather, it wasn't going to be a pretty game.

"It was just, do what you can do to win the game, and we did that."