PARS boss James McPake says he can understand calls for one of their up-and-coming youngsters to be given more first team opportunities.

But he insists that care needs to be taken with the jump between reserve football and the Championship before deciding when a player is ready for regular top level game time.

Taylor Sutherland netted a brace in a 2-1 Reserve Cup win over Dundee on Tuesday and, with McPake in attendance, could have given the manager food for thought ahead of the trip to Hampden to face Queen's Park, with Chris Kane being assessed after being substituted with a head knock against Partick Thistle.

The 18-year-old has scored twice in 11 appearances for the first team this season, taking his tally to six in 35 overall.

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With Dunfermline having only found the net nine times in 12 league games, some supporters have pondered as to whether the Athletic youth product should be given more minutes.

"I can understand comments when a team’s not scoring goals, and then somebody’s scoring them in the reserves, but I think we’ve got to be careful with the difference in levels," McPake said.

"I’d love him to be playing and scoring every week for me, because it’d make my job a hell of a lot easier, but we must be careful with Taylor, because what we don’t want to do is say he should be playing because he’ll guarantee goals. It might get to the point where we start him, if we keep creating chances and not scoring them. The big thing is you need to be creating chances for him to be effective.

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"I was the one that gave him a full-time contract. I've seen his attributes the first day I came in. He has a lot to learn and he works really hard on that.

"He scores goals in training, he scores goals in reserve games. He scored the odd goal at first team level. There’s a million miles between reserve football and first team football but I thought he was excellent (in the reserves). The second goal in particular was a really good finish and the first goal was a right good goal as well.

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"There’s a lot of players, not just in our team, but in our league, probably wouldn’t take the shots Taylor takes.

"In the Morton game out there, where we had probably about 100 chances, the first thing you need to say in the office after is, if Taylor was maybe on the pitch when those chances were coming, he’d have got on the end of one of them.

"He’s got that knack."

During his time with the club, McPake has blooded youngsters into his team, including the likes of Andrew Tod and Sam Young, the latter of whom has played 11 times this term, starting in their last nine games.

"We want our academy players playing in our first team," he continued.

"I’ve seen it with Sam Young and Andrew Tod started last season in the team. He’s doing great. The younger ones are doing really well going out and playing on loan.

"We’ve got that core group of young players that will be good players for this club. Ewan McLeod is excellent every single day in training. I want to push him as much as I can.

"I do think we’ve got to be mindful that Sam, Taylor, Andrew, Ewan, Jake Sutherland are young. They’ll have dips in form, they’ll have highs, they’ll have lows. The fans will back them on that. Sam’s doing great at the minute and they’ll all be looking and striving to play week in, week out like Sam.

"That’s what they are all desperate to do. We’re desperate for that as well."