MICHAEL O'HALLORAN says he understands the frustration of Pars fans but hopes they will stick by the team tomorrow afternoon.

The experienced wide man admitted that their performance in Saturday's 5-0 humbling by in-form Greenock Morton was "really disappointing", and that they "merited" criticism from the punters.

However, he's hoping they'll give he and his team-mates backing when they entertain Queen's Park in a clash that is of significant importance in the Championship table.

A run of seven games without a win has led to Dunfermline dropping to eighth, just one place and one point above tomorrow's visitors, albeit having played a game fewer.

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With bottom side Arbroath coming to KDM Group East End Park following the clash with the Spiders, it's shaping up to be a crucial couple of weeks for Athletic in their bid to pull away from the bottom end of the table.

Former St Johnstone star O'Halloran is hopeful that the Pars can get their supporters on-side quickly, commenting: "Hopefully we can do that. Hopefully they come and stick by us.

"Understandably, that would have been difficult for them last weekend. It was difficult for us as players and I can understand their frustration.

"It was totally merited, we know that, but hopefully we can give them something to cheer about this weekend.

"I'm not taking away from how disappointed we were with the performance last Saturday. I don’t want to say it was one of those games, although it almost felt like that, but we’re a lot better than what we showed. It was really disappointing.

"We’ve spoken through it, we’ve analysed it and the beauty of football is the games come thick and fast, and we’ve got the chance to go out on Saturday and put it right, and put on a performance that’s better than last week."

Manager, James McPake, admitted that it "took a while" to analyse what went wrong against Morton, and, when asked if it was difficult to sit through, O'Halloran continued: "Yes, of course, but it’s important, even when you win things, to go through certain things.

"But there were a few things we had to address. The gaffer and Dave went though it and they were spot on.

"We know ourselves though, it was evident, but we’re a lot better than that. It was one of those games, I think, but it’s important now we go and give a proper account of ourselves.

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"Obviously you can’t forget it. But there’s things we can learn from it in a productive way. It was a major negative to lose 5-0 at home, anybody will tell you that, but you can look at it and say, ‘okay, we can fix that’ when we’ve gone through the goals and the performance as a whole.

"It’s a learning process as well.

"I don’t want to say we’ve forgotten about it but it’s all about moving on to the next game.

"We know how tough it’ll be on Saturday. Queen’s Park are doing well at the minute, they’ve got a few good results, and obviously we lost down there the last time, so, it’s a chance for us to go and put that one right as well."