It was the end of the Scottish Cup journey for Stirling Albion on Saturday – but boss Darren Young believes the fans’ positive response to his side at full-time was richly deserved for their display.
The Binos acquitted themselves superbly in an even contest with Championship side Inverness CT, with a Dale Carrick brace having the visitors in the game until Aaron Doran’s well-taken winner secured the Highland side’s passage to round four.
But the League Two side played with confidence and created several chances to score more goals, with relief coming from the home fans at the final whistle.
Young said: “It just feels like one of those days that it wasn’t meant to be. On another day it could’ve been us coming away with the 3-2 win.
“Overall, I’m really proud of the performance and the players can be really proud of their performance and the fans showed their appreciation at the end by clapping them off.
“We’ve came and given a good account of ourselves, there are two divisions between the teams and they had a fairly strong team out even though they have nine or ten out with injuries at the moment.
“I can be happy with the performance and obviously while we’re going down the road out of the cup, there’s a lot of pride from how we played.
“Looking at the stats, I think we had more shots, more shots on target and think we had more corners so we frustrated them but at the same time, we took the opportunity to go and get at them. Kai (Fotheringham) got at them, Danny (Denholm) got at them, Dale was outstanding, all through the team was outstanding.
“We brought the boys on at the end with the legs and the energy to go and cause teams problems, it’s a sign of good squad depth and it’s good to have that to bring on.
“It’s one of those ones where would you prefer to play poorly and get through, we’d love to be there but we’ve given a good account of ourselves and shown how well we have performed in the league.”
One disappointing area for the gaffer was the concession of the lead just three minutes after Carrick’s headed opener, as well as losing two goals to set-pieces.
Young added: “I’m a bit disappointed we weren’t able to hold on to that lead a little bit longer and we lose a poor goal quickly.
“The reactions from losing the two goals was great to get right back in it and I felt it was deserved going into half-time – Dale does brilliantly again, putting their defender under pressure, he takes a bad touch and he’s on to it like a flash and produced a great finish back across the goalkeeper.
“We felt we were in it at half-time and were more than confident with how we performed. It was just a case of more of the same really. We lost the third goal which is disappointing because it’s a poor goal and there’s a bit of quality because they bounced it around us.”
