Smith: I'm proud of Dunipace's goalscoring exploits this year

That result leaves his side sitting in third spot in East of Scotland Football League first division conference A, on 56 points from 25 games, with three matches to go.

David Kane’s sending-off saw their Fife hosts score from the resulting free-kick on 28 minutes, but a double from David Grant put Pace ahead at the break.

In the second half, goals from Kier Stevenson and a hat-trick strike from Grant sealed all three points.

Smith said: “Considering the fact that we lost our goalkeeper half an hour into the match and conceded from the resulting free-kick, to actually win the game in the manner that we did was excellent.

“Going down to ten men probably helped kick us into life, and from that minute on, we played some of our best football this season.

“We managed to go in at the break in the lead and that gave us confidence to go out after the interval and control the game.

“Later on in the game, we didn’t down tools either, which would have been easy to do at this point in the season. The result reminded me just how strong the character is in the squad.

“St Andrews are a much-improved side too. They are one of the league’s better sides, so it was a great day at the office.”

He added that their next campaign should be even better with the squad at his disposal having been able to gel throughout this season.

Smith wants to challenge for the league title next year and believes that is an achievable goal.

“Third is where we will realistically finish, and for us that is a good season, although we wanted to go a little bit further,” he said.

“We’ve scored the most goals out of any team in the East of Scotland region and that is something to shout about.

“Scoring 103 goals at any level of football is special, and to have one player score 54 of them shows that we have something here.

“Next season, with everyone having played a full year with each other, I think we can really do something and move on to the next level.

“The league title isn’t beyond this group of players.”