MANAGERS James McPake and John Potter praised their respective teams' work rate on Saturday as the final Fife derby of the season ended in stalemate.

The fourth meeting of the season between League One leaders Dunfermline, and Kelty Hearts, ended scoreless after a competitive 90 minutes at KDM Group East End Park.

The visitors, who had taken a point at second-placed Falkirk the previous week, secured their second draw against their neighbours with a well-organised, disciplined defensive show.

Kelty went into the match safe from the division's bottom two spots, following their promotion last term, whilst the Pars remain 11 points clear at the top with six games to go.

Dunfermline also extended their unbeaten League One run to 18 matches - their best such run in a league season since going 17 without defeat in 1985/86 - whilst Deniz Mehmet's 18th league clean sheet, and 21st in all competitions, saw him surpass Ian Westwater's 1984/85 record for the number of shut-outs in a season.

McPake credited Athletic's opponents post-match, commenting: "It was a bit of a boring game - I think everybody that was here would say that - but it wasn't through a lack of effort or commitment from the players.

"I think today we've now broken the club's (record) unbeaten run, that's us on 18, in a single season.

"We've broken that in a single season. Deniz has now beaten Ian Westwater and he's got the single most clean sheets in all competitions in a season, so there are a couple of wee things.

"Ultimately, we wanted three points. We didn't get it, but huge credit to Kelty.

"We saw them do that to Falkirk and I think they created more at the Falkirk Stadium, the one that gets fired across the goal, where (Nathan) Austin could score at the back post.

"They're a threat. That's two draws and two victories we've had, and every game's been every really tough, and could've went either way to be fair, so credit to John Potter and his staff and players.

"We'll dust ourselves down. We've got another game next week and we'll look forward to that."

Potter was pleased with his team's efforts to secure a first point for Kelty at East End, and said: "I'm happy with the point and the result. I'm happy with the way we went about our business, our work rate, effort and desire to keep the ball out the goal.

"Can we be better with the ball? Yeah, we need to be. In the main we have, a lot of games this season, actually, probably have in our other games with Dunfermline to be honest, but, when you come here to a club this size, and the team that's going to win the league, to get a point is a good point for ourselves.

"Dunfermline kept pushing towards the end. You could see a few of our boys tiring, a couple of niggles. Boys actually started the game with niggles as well, so it's just been a rough wee period trying to get a full squad together, but we stuck in, worked hard and defended the goal really, really well."