Hamilton Accies defender Jackson Longridge says their focus is now fully on the Championship, and trying to inflict a rare defeat on leaders Falkirk.
Accies crashed out of the SPFL Trust Trophy last Friday night with a 1-0 defeat at home to league rivals Morton, managed by former captain Dougie Imrie.
Falkirk, meanwhile, have hit the ground running in the second tier since coming up from League One, losing just once in nine games so far.
Ex-Livingston ace Longridge said: “It’s disappointing to go out the cup. Obviously for the club it’s good to go on these kinds of cup runs, but we need to move on from it. We’ll be back in training and it’s disappointing, but now the full focus is on the league.
“Falkirk don’t lose many games, but it’s up to us to change that. We’ll look at what their strengths and weaknesses are, work hard, and we know it’s going to be a really tough game.
“John McGlynn has them playing really good football and they’re a strong side, but hopefully we can exploit their weaknesses, take our game to them, and come out on top.
“It’s still very tight in the league. It’s good that we’re at home and it’s a case of trying to build as many points as we can , and that comes on Friday.
“Hopefully we can put points on the board, build some momentum, and start climbing up the table.”
On-loan Motherwell striker Filip Stuparevic netted from the spot after Reghan Tumilty pushed Michael Garrity in the box and referee Ross Hardie awarded a penalty.
Accies had chances before that, with Kevin O’Hara forcing a save from Gary Woods, and Nikolay Todorov firing high and wide of pretty much an open goal, but that was pretty much it, until ex-Accies keeper Woods brilliantly saved a top corner-bound shot from Euan Henderson.
Longridge said: “I feel like we started the game really well. We’ve worked hard in training on patterns of play, and it was coming off in the first 10 or 15 minutes.
“We had a few chances that we don’t take, and I felt like it changed as soon as they scored.
“After that it was a wee bit ragged, they got a foot-hold in the game and had the majority of the possession, while we lost our way a little bit.
“At half-time we had a wee talk about it, that we needed to be a little bit more solid and start the second half like we had the first.
“I felt that we did that, we had a lot of possession, but we weren’t really doing anything with it.
“We lacked a little bit of composure up top and, to be fair, there weren’t really any shots on goal apart from Hendo at the end, and the keeper’s made a good save.
“But it was just a bit frustrating that we didn’t get any crosses when we had big Toddy up top.
“We didn’t really get him service, and we could have got the ball wider quicker, to use his strength.
“I don’t think we did that. He had his chance, but he’s missed it, we’ve tried to go again, and it changed when they scored.”
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