East Fife’s players have been hauled in for extra sessions this week and boss Gary Naysmith hopes they will be all the better for the experience.
Naysmith was visibly and understandably disappointed after his side shipped five goals at home to Ayr on Saturday, a result which keeps the Fifers under real pressure in the relegation zone.
In the wake of their 5-0 thrashing, the squad have been ordered in for three days rather than the normal two this week, with most of the first team lining up against East Stirling in the reserves on Monday night almost by way of punishment.
It turned out to be a morale-boosting night at Bayview as the Fifers ran out 5-0 winners, and Naysmith wants to carry that into this weekend’s derby with Dunfermline.
“Hopefully all of the players will have taken some confidence from it,” he said.
“It was a very young East Stirling team but I think it was important to get the lads back in and back into the habit of passing and trying to score some goals.
“You can’t turn in a performance like they did on Saturday and expect to get days off.
“I’ll be working as hard as I can to get things right and the only way I can do that is to get the players in an extra night to work with them.”
Saturday’s result was a real low point for many supporters and indeed for Naysmith himself, but he wants his players to provide the right response in the coming weeks.
“I don’t think Ayr started the game particularly well and we had a shot which hit the bar,” he said.
“So at the 35-minute mark you are feeling quite comfortable. But to go from 35 minutes at 0-0 to 4-0 down at 51 minutes is just unacceptable.
“The disappointing thing for us was that once we had a setback for the first goal, we just folded.
“You can talk about organisation but if you’ve not got the desire to bounce back when you’ve had a setback nobody is going to put that into you.
“Taking nothing away from Ayr, they beat us 5-0 but I think that was the worst Ayr have played against us this season.”