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paddy connolly after cup final defeat

I hard to pinpoint anything which contributed to the defeat, obviously the wheels came off a wee bit in the end with the result but at that stage we were chasing the game. First goal was vital, we didn’t defend it properly, but at that stage I still felt we would get back in the game, I told the players at half-time – we just need to make sure we keep taking the ball. Livingston had a wee spell in the first half were they were not over running us, but they got confidence from their first goal which knocked the stuffing out of us a wee bit but at half-time we still felt we could get back into it but it just wasn’t to be, it was Livingston’s day in the end and we just need to move on to Wednesday and back into the league campaign with two more big games coming up this week, so we need to focus on that now. Even at 2-0 down we hit the post twice and if one of these had went in it would have been a different game but that seems to happen in cup finals, there is a fine line, the third and fourth goals we were chasing it a bit, we had lost our shape by then as we tried to throw on a few bodies hoping to get back into the game, but disappointing as you can imagine the players are gutted but our guys are a resilient bunch who will bounce back and move on, there has not been many games this season when we have not been in the game but you could argue today that once the third goal went in it was game over. On Wednesday we have another difficult game when we visit Tynecastle which will be a very difficult game. I don’t think it will be a difficult job lifting our guys, we have lost games before and we know we must move on to the next game and that’s why we still have a chance of staying in this league because the players have been resilient so I will look for them to go again in midweek. It was always going to be a huge task going to Tynecastle so I don’t think it will be any different after our result in the cup final. However the players will be suffering tonight it is never nice to lose a cup final. We will be in again on Tuesday night and have a game plan in place and see how we go