LEWIS McCANN says he feels good in terms of his fitness but was disappointed to see the opportunity for more match minutes disappear on Tuesday night.

The 21-year-old had been hoping to play just his third game since returning from a hamstring injury on Christmas Eve in the SPFL Trust Trophy quarter-final at Dundee on Tuesday, only for the game to be called off less than an hour before kick-off.

McCann, who marked his comeback with the winner at Kelty Hearts in the festive derby, started his first match since the start of October – against this weekend’s opponents, Peterhead – in the win at FC Edinburgh on Saturday.

Since his return from injury, Dunfermline have had two games called off and, speaking to Press Sport, the Northern Ireland under-21 cap admitted that minutes on the pitch were needed to regain optimum fitness.

“You want every game on because you want to play as much as you can, especially for myself, when I’m coming back from injury,” he said.

“Obviously, these things happen. You don’t have any real say in it so you’ve just got to deal with it and move on. We can’t do anything about it and we’ve just got to focus on the next game.

“Especially when you come back from injury, and you don’t necessarily feel as fit as you did before you got injured, you just want to get as many games as you can, and as many minutes, to get your legs going again.

“I feel good. I was out for a fair amount of time, and they (the club’s coaching staff and medical team) were cautious with me coming back, so I did a lot of running and a lot of preparation work.

“I feel fine but it’s just playing in the games is a different level. You can’t really practise it. You can’t really get the intensity out of training, or doing runs, as you can in playing games.

“It’s just getting back up to match speed. I think I’m getting there.”

A fully-fit McCann, who has scored six goals in 16 appearances in all competitions so far this season, is a boost for manager James McPake, who sent him on as a substitute at Kelty, which proved pivotal in the Pars coming back from a goal down to win.

He played almost the entire 90 minutes – only going off as a substitute for Nikolay Todorov with three minutes left – in the capital at the weekend, helping Athletic move four points clear of their nearest challengers at the top of League One, having played two games less.

When asked if it felt like a big win to the players, McCann replied: “It was a massive result, obviously, because they were on a good run of form and were putting the pressure on us.

“We had all the pressure on us to go and win the game but now we’ve opened up a little bit of breathing space that we can settle down, play our game, focus on us and not focus on anyone else.

“If we keep the way that we’re going, and hopefully we do, then hopefully we can continue just winning games. It’s all about us and what we do; we don’t really focus on other teams and what they’re doing.

“Everything’s tailored towards us and how we can win the next game. It’s never really about how we’re going to win the game in two weeks, or we need to win the next three games. It’s always just let’s win this game at the weekend.

“The gaffer’s keeping us all grounded, just telling us to take it game by game, and not think about the total outcome of the league. That’s what we’re doing and, so far, it’s worked for us.”