GOALSCORER Ryan Blair insists that high-flying Pars "just want game after game" after they moved into the Championship's top four on Saturday.

The on-loan Swansea City midfielder fired home his first goal for Athletic - and just the second of his senior career - to sink Queen of the South and earn his side their fourth win in a row.

With the previous occupants of fourth spot, and the final Premiership promotion place, Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Scottish Cup duty, Stevie Crawford's side took full advantage after a hard-fought contest with the struggling Doonhamers.

After failing to win in any of Crawford's first four games in charge, Dunfermline are now looking up rather than behind them and, speaking to the media after the game, Blair said: "The boys are buzzing.

"When I came in, I didn't think that it was downbeat at all really, but now, after four wins on the bounce, we are all flying and ready to go again. We just want game after game.

"It is a perfect time to get this run again. At this point of the season there is a lot of pressure on teams to get into that top four.

"It was a scrappy game throughout but I was just delighted to get my goal, my first one for Dunfermline.

"Down at Swansea I am more of a holding player, like an anchor man, but up here show me the goal and I like to get forward and get strikes at goal.

"That’s four wins on the bounce now and we need to kick on from here and hopefully we can make that play off place our own."

Head coach Crawford praised his players for being "a credit to themselves", and commented: "The boys have something about them just now; there is a belief that we are not going to concede easy goals.

"Queens gave us some problems - (Stephen) Dobbie and (Lyndon) Dykes are clever players - but we battled through those periods of the game, and Ryan Blair scored a really good goal to win us the game.

"When we look back and analyse games, the boys are working to a certain shape, when teams are getting at us and maybe have better periods in the game we seem to be getting bodies in the box to defend the situations. It is not going to continue with clean sheets for the rest of the season but it is not a coincidence that we can build from that."

Crawford was also pleased for his match-winner, and added: "He is a very good passer of the ball, he has a good strike and great at set plays. He deserves that, he has been magnificent since he came in from day one. 

"The pleasing thing for the coaching staff is that it is collective at the moment. I said to the boys before the game, before we read out the starters and the subs, that every player has had an opportunity. Rightly so because it is a team game.

"In terms of commitment we can only demand the same again. If you were to say ‘is there more to come’ ideally you are looking at pre season before you can really start bedding in ideas. 

"The boys have played a 4-1 4-1, we have played a 4-4-2, we have played a diamond - it is not as if we are coming out every week and asking them to play in the same manner. It is the demands I am putting on them and they are responding to them."