JASON MCCRINDLE heaped praise on his Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts heroes for "perfectly" carrying out the game plan that saw them claim East of Scotland Qualifying Cup glory.
The team's manager was full of pride after they defeated Dunbar United on Sunday afternoon to win an historic first trophy, in their first cup final, since the club launched a senior side six years ago.
Aaron Wood's superbly taken header, and Ben Finnan's low drive from outside the box, put the Swifts two goals up inside the opening 18 minutes of the showpiece at Newtongrange Star's New Victoria Park.
Although they had to hang on in the final quarter-of-an-hour when Taylor Hendry converted a penalty, and Brandon Archibald hit the post, McCrindle's stars held on to bring the silverware home to West Fife.
READ MORE: Swifts secure stunning East of Scotland Qualifying Cup final glory
"It's been a lot of hard work," he told Press Sport.
"During the week, before the training sessions, I was down at the club at five o'clock. We don't actually start training until half seven, quarter to eight, so I've been down there at five o'clock watching videos, watching games, trying to see where we can hurt them.
"Personally for myself, it's been a lot of hard work put into it, but it's for the guys. We said that we would give them as much information as we can, in terms of them going to try and win it.
"For me, I felt it was important that I did my job right to then go and help then, and then the guys executed it perfectly.
"It's all credit to them.
"It's only been six years since we've been a senior side. I didn't know that - I thought it was longer.
"In the space of six years, we've created the pathway that was there before, but we've given them a senior side. At the moment, we're in the Premier League, so we can try and use that as well, but to get to a cup final, and a big cup final - it's a huge cup to win. I'm proud of everything that's going on behind the scenes.
"Long may it continue in terms of trying to bring success to the club."
Swifts were the team on top in the opening period, creating other opportunities outwith their goals, whilst they were rarely troubled at the back.
Goalkeeper, Michael Gibb, and his defenders, led superbly by captain, Callum Deas, had more to deal with after the break and their work in preserving their lead, despite conceding, delighted their manager.
"First half I thought we were excellent," McCrindle continued.
"We purposely didn't take a game last Saturday, so it allowed us to have these four (training) sessions to plan for today. Tactically, the guys were excellent in terms of what we were asking them to do, especially in the first half.
"You saw what they did - they tried to do what they do - but we managed to combat that with the way we set up. I felt offensively as well we were really, really good going forward.
"Probably the only disappointment at half-time was that we were only 2-0 up, so all credit to the guys.
"We looked dangerous. Over the last few weeks, our striker's been isolated a wee bit, so we tweaked these sessions to work on a few things to try and get closer to him.
"I felt that the runners, and the movement and things like that as well, was really, really good.
"I felt Luke (Mahady) was a really good number nine, in terms of him being big, strong and physical. That occupies the two centre backs, but then it allows our runners Ben Finnan, Aaron Wood, Ronan McMurchie, Liam Kelly, to then get up and support.
"I thought second half we knew what was coming and I think that's probably what's pleased me most.
"Without being cliché, first half, offensively, we looked really, really good, but second half, defensively, we looked really strong, so there was two sides to our game today that was really, really pleasing.
"When you put those two together, you end up getting a result like that and, without being disrespectful, I felt we did deserve it over the 90 minutes.
"You've got to ride your luck because they're going to fling everything at it, but you make your own luck.
"I just felt the way that we performed, and the way that we worked, we deserve a wee bit of luck.
"I'm just really pleased for the guys, really pleased for everybody connected with the club."
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