A STATEMENT performance was required after the Ayr United debacle of the week before and that is exactly what the Wee County faithful were given.

After being so easily brushed aside by the Honest Men on their own ground, Alloa delivered the perfect retort to the doubters as they put in a diligent defensive display to secure a precious point in Fife.

It could so easily have been so much more and had they built on unlikely hero Adam Brown’s second half thunderbolt no one would have begrudged them taking all three points.

This was a display built on everything which has made this team so good over the years; tirelessness off the ball and in the likes of Iain Flannigan - in his 200th game for the Wasps - composure on it.

Stevie Hetherington, so often Flannigan’s trust midfield deputy, covered every blade of grass for the cause. But that was true of all of Peter Grant’s men. Whenever a black shirted jersey beat the first line of Alloa’s rearguard, the Wasps were there to swarm their opponents, regain possession and start an attack.

In terms of statements, Brown’s first goal for the Wasps was the type of brilliance concomitant with the best of them. He was only in the starting line-up due to Liam Dick’s injury, but he made sure to stamp his mark on the game, picking up Kevin O’Hara’s pass, drifting in from the left and rifling an unstoppable shot into the top corner in the second half’s infancy.

It was a goal worthy of Alloa’s first half display and sent the visiting fans into raptures.

This made it all the more painful when Andy Graham and Robbie Deas parted to let Kyle Turner wrongfoot Jamie MacDonald for an equaliser in Dunfermline’s next attack.

The Wasps could rightly cry for a Kevin Nesbit handball in the build-up under the new rules, but they could have so easily prevented Turner from getting his strike away had they saved their pleas for a stop in play.

No one would have predicted this helter skelter opening to the second half when the sides headed in at the break without ever really testing either man between the posts. Alloa, who had reverted to a more traditional four-man midfield, showed some nice moments in the first 45 but it was really Dunfermline who should have opened the scoring.

Jon Robertson was the man tasked with replacing the injured Dick but he was caught cold within the opening minute.

The makeshift left-back combined with Deas to let Ryan Dow ghost into the box and put it on a plate for Nesbit. For a man who scored 34 goals last season, the Pars striker’s effort past the post defied belief.

The pair would more than redeem themselves, however, growing in confidence as the half wore on. Deas in particular was a rock at the heart of Alloa’s defensive efforts.

He never let Nesbit out of his sights, winning headers and showing an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time to block goal bound efforts as Dunfermline turned the screw.

Alloa, for their part, only really had an Alan Trouten header into Cammy Gill’s hands and an O’Hara effort past the post of note but they ended the half on top and took the lead on the other side of the half-time oranges when Brown burst the net.

Both sides did their best to turn one point into three but it was Alloa who dug in to withstand the advances of an increasingly desperate Dunfermline.

Nesbit hit the woodwork with a free header and Deas’ timely interception from underneath his own bar was as good as it got for the hosts.

Alloa could have even snatched all three points when substitute Liam Buchanan darted beyond the reach of the Dunfermline defence and agonisingly lobbed an effort over the bar.