Jonny Hayes was selected as the BT Sport man of the match on Friday night. After the game he spoke to RedTV:

“As an attacking player the more you see of the ball the more enjoyable the game is so I enjoyed the game.

“It was a shame we did not put the match to bed a bit sooner. We are creating chances though and the main thing is that we won the three points. That is all that matters.

“To be fair Scott Bain in goal for Dundee again played very well. He always seems to have a good game against us. Scott is a good goalkeeper and pulled off some very good saves.

“He made a number of stops to keep Ash out. The big man likes to try and get on the scoresheet! It is the same in training as well. When he attacks the ball in the opposition box he is one of the most dangerous players in the league. I know from speaking to opposition players, they have told me he is a handful for them to cope with especially from corners. Ash has a couple of goals to his name and was unlucky not to get a couple more on Friday night. 

“Our goalkeeper also played well when he was called upon. Our defensive unit was solid and the clean sheet was pleasing. The defenders gave us the confidence that we could go on and win the game 1-0.
Fellow Irishman Adam Rooney gave Jonny a bit of stick on RedTV for his assist on Friday night. Adam said:

“You can always gamble on Jonny shanking a shot! Thankfully he has done it again tonight. It is a good partnership. He tries to shoot and I get the tap-ins!

As you can imagine, Jonny had a few words of his own on the situation:

“I am surprised, it was actually quite far out from him. Normally he is a little bit closer than that!

“16 goals from a combined distance of 16 yards!

“We have had this running joke since the time we were in Inverness. If I shoot I seem to hit the ball across goal and he always seems to be there to tap in. It seems to have worked for the pair of us for the last five or six years so long may it continue.

“There are very few players who have that natural instinct that Adam has. He always seems to be in the right place at the right time.

“When I am about to cross a ball it appears that everyone else in the area is standing on their toes waiting for the ball to come in apart from Adam who is always on the move. The goal against Dundee, if you watch it back, no one else has read the situation like him. We are very fortunate to have him.”

As well as praising Adam, Jonny was also very complementary towards Paul Fiske and the AFC ground staff for the job they have done in recent weeks in very difficult circumstances:

“The pitches at this time of year are not easy but I was out walking my dogs over the past couple of days and everywhere was either frozen or flooded. The ground staff deserve enormous credit for getting our pitch as dry as they did against Dundee.

“It is not ideal at this time of year but things are certainly a lot better than they used to be. I saw Joe Harper put a picture on social media of himself and Alex McLeish and a few others training on the car park outside the main stand. So that puts things into perspective!

“It does make it hard in the last ten minutes when you are tired and trying to see out the game at 1-0.

“We will now enjoy a couple of days off. We have had some tough games on heavy pitches over the last few weeks so we can go away and rest up.

“The confidence has always been high in the changing room. There is a lot of self-belief in that changing room. We just go about our business and don’t worry what everyone else is saying or doing.

“We just have to concentrate on doing as well as we can in our remaining league games and then see where it takes us.”