St Johnstone captain Dave Mackay is confident there will be no Euro hangover when the Perth men travel to Kilmarnock.
A feeling of anti-climax would be excusable at Rugby Park in the wake of Thursday night’s gut-wrenching Europa League penalty shoot-out defeat in front of approaching 9,000 Saints fans.
Mackay, who failed to score with his spot-kick, insisted though that minds are already trained on getting the club back into Europe for another adventure next summer.
He said: “The boys are hurting because we worked so hard to get into that position and then to lose to a team like that is so disappointing.
“We should have buried them in normal time and then extra-time and to lose on penalties made it even worse.
“It comes down to a bit of a lottery when it gets to penalties, and we didn’t take ours well enough. We’ll just have to bounce back against Kilmarnock now and get our minds focused on the league. That’s what got us here in the first place.
“It won’t be easy. We’ll no doubt feel sorry for ourselves for a bit but we’ll be back in tomorrow and get our minds on Kilmarnock. That’s what we’re paid to do, and I’m sure we’ll be ready for it.
“There’s plenty of positives. We won two games away from home and knocked a good team like Rosenborg out of the competition, which was a great achievement.
“We got into Europe through the league, and we’ll give it our best shot to do that again. That starts again now.”
It is safe to say there will be no exchange of Christmas cards between the Saints and Minsk playing staffs.
As well as bringing a physical style of football to Perth, bordering on the brutal at times, the Belarusians also brought a pretty low standard of post-match etiquette, according to Mackay.
They should have had at least one player sent off during the game for stamping on Stevie May.
The referee did eventually produce a red card for Sergei Sonovsky after the penalty shoot-out for uncalled-for celebrations in the faces of some of the Saints players.
“Minsk aren’t in the same class as Rosenborg either on the pitch or off it,” Mackay pointed out.
“But they’re in the next round and we’re not. We’ve only got ourselves to blame. There was no need for the guy who got sent off to react the way he did. Celebrate with your own players.
“They were like that over there as well players wouldn’t shake hands after the game. The fans came out in great numbers for the two European games and gave us brilliant backing.
“It’s just a shame we couldn’t give them another win, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.
“It was just one of those nights when we didn’t seem to get the rub of the green in front of goal. On another night we could have got three or four.
“The players who got the chances would normally stick them away.”
Saints will hopefully have Murray Davidson available after illness.
Manager Tommy Wright is also of a mind to strive for a third successive year in the Europa League qualifiers.
He said: “For nearly 16,500 to turn out over the two home games is a credit to all the supporters and it was great to see young and old sitting together, creating an atmosphere that, even in defeat, made the night memorable and special.
“With the help of their support and with the strong squad we have, it makes us even more determined to qualify for Europe again this season.”