Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes admits his side must show more belief if they're to bounce back from a damaging derby defeat at the hands of Ayr United.
The Honest Men ran out deserved 2-1 winners in last night's Rugby Park tussle which leaves Killie five points adrift of Arbroath at the Championship summit.
And McInnes knows his men will have to up their game quick style if they're to start hunting down the Lichties, after they went down with a wimper to their bitter rivals.
He said: "I wouldn't say we showed a lack of fight...it's too simplistic to say that.
"For me it was more a lack of belief.
"The players are definitely working hard enough.
"But we have to show more courage and responsibility with the demands that are here at this club.
"I just felt there was still a lot of the game to play for [at 2-1 down] and it only takes a second to score a goal.
"There was still 10-plus minutes to go but it was almost like we were feeling sorry for ourselves because the game wasn't going the way we wanted.
"For me, that's got to change."
McInnes insists he saw enough in the performance to suggest Killie can get things right, but knows they will have to start being more ruthless in front of goal.
He added: "We had real opportunites at 1-0 and 1-1 to go and win it.
"When we got Chris Burke and Fraser Murray on the ball, they carried real threat and real fight for us.
"But we lost control of the game and made a change to try and address that to try and get more control through the middle of the park.
"But once they got their second goal they could have picked us off once or twice after that and I'm disappointed at how the game unravelled and ran away from us.
"Every game has defining moments and we missed our opportunities to go back in front again."
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