East Fife manager Willie Aitchison hopes his players can channel last week’s cup disappointment into points when they get back to league business.
The Methil club crashed out of their third and final cup competition of the season last weekend when they went down 2-1 to Forfar in the Scottish Cup, with Craig Johnstone’s strike not enough to counter strikes from Dale Hilson and Chris Templeman from the home side at Station Park.
Given the balance of play, Aitchison believes his side can feel aggrieved to be out of the Scottish Cup, but is now concentrating on hauling themselves up League One starting with Saturday’s trip to Arbroath.
“The best team lost, without a shadow of a doubt,” the Bayview boss said. “I’m just really frustrated for the boys, because even when we went two down we knew we would still get something and we kept plugging away and plugging away.
“It’s credit to the guys that they kept going Craig Johnstone finished off a great goal and it took Rab Douglas to make a fantastic save to stop it from going 2-2.
“So overall I’m not frustrated with the boys. I think they acquitted themselves really well.
“I know we’re out of the cup and it’s very frustrating, but it’s a difficult one to take when you’ve probably been the better team on the day.
“We tried to change the formation and get the guys going and it was working, but we just ran out of time really at the end.
“We’ve had a difficult run of games recently, but now we’re back to playing the teams who are more around our level.
“If the boys keep playing the way they have been playing then it’ll come.”
The Fifers will make a late decision on Ross Brown’s fitness after the midfielder needed stitches in a head wound suffered during their cup exit at Station Park.
Aitchison felt Forfar’s Marvin Andrews merited a red card for the challenge which landed Brown in hospital with concussion, and the Fifers’ medical team will assess the situation ahead of the game at Gayfield.
The Bayview boss will be hoping Brown will be fit to slot in alongside the likes of Stephen Hughes, and Aitchison reckons there is more to come from the former Scotland international after he signed for the Methil club last month.
“Stephen is a quality player and he’s going to get better and better. I would say he’s only been giving us about 60% of what Stephen will give us and he’s said that himself.”