Darren Young declared himself happy with his Stirling Albion side’s pre-season preparations - but warned his stars they will need to be ruthless to make the grade this season.
The Binos gaffer watched his side fall to a narrow 2-1 defeat to Championship Arbroath in their latest match at Forthbank on Saturday, with a final tune-up seeing Stirling defeat Albion Rovers 3-1 behind closed doors on Tuesday night.
It’s all ahead of the kick-off of the Viaplay Cup group stage on Saturday with the visit of another second-tier side to Stirling, this time Ayr United.
Stirling more than matched Dick Campbell’s Lichties for most of the afternoon and responded well to Ryan Dow’s tap-in opener with a leveller from Kieran Moore just four minutes later.
However, some sloppy play from the Binos on the edge of their area saw a trialist striker blast home a second-half winner for Arbroath.
The home side created chances and made most of the running against their visitors, with Lichties keeper Alasdair Adams starring with a stunning save from a Dale Carrick header.
Despite the defeat, Young insisted building up fitness and the performance were the most important things - although he was left disappoined by the manner in which his side conceded the two goals.
Young said: “I thought we did well and I’m happy with the way we performed and it was a good 90 minutes - the fitness, hard work and desire was all there, so delighted with that.
“We scored a good goal but really disappointed with the goal that we lose. It’s a throw-in and they get in although they do get a bit of lucky break.
“The second goal, young Godwin has maybe made the wrong decision to cut inside and maybe should clear it at the edge of the box, they take it off us and score.
“It’s poor from us from that side of things but these are the things we learn from and we didn’t really get cut open at all, we were pretty defensively solid.
“We created loads of chances and maybe could have scored a couple more on another day, the goalie has made a worldie save from Dale in the second half.
“One of the things about the level that we are going up to is that these things can happen if you don’t take your chances when you get them, you will get punished.”
The match against the Honest Men will be followed by the Binos’ first real litmus test of the season, with a trip to rivals and fellow League One side Alloa Athletic four days later.
