Furious Dalbeattie Star boss Eddie Warwick has challenged his players to show their bottle after Saturday’s defeat to Stranraer.
The South of Scotland League champs went down 4-2 at Islecroft, a result which knocked them off the top of the table.
And Warwick said: “We may have the better technical players but it was the perfect example that you can have all the talent in the world, but if it decides not to turn up, you’ll not do anything.
“The heart, desire, grit, effort, work rate and team spirit Stranraer showed was absolutely outstanding. They covered every blade of grass, they came to Dalbeattie and wanted it more and that’s the most disappointing thing.
“I always praise the players, they have given us everything and done very little wrong in a year and a half in the South, but that wasn’t good enough.
“My biggest question to them is where’s your bottle?
“It’s been coming. We weren’t great against Saints, we definitely weren’t great against Uppers and it was our worst showing of the season, then we’ve been caught out by a team with grit, aggression and some good players.
“They fully deserved it but there’s question marks for me about just how much we wanted it.”
Stranraer opened the scoring through Martin McClorey but that was soon cancelled out by Kyle Higgins.
However, Stranraer were back in front at the interval thanks to Harry Mitchell.
Ross Hunter drew Star level again with a penalty just after the break but Stranraer were soon back ahead through Mitchell, Euan Sneddons sealing the points late on.
Warwick said: “I don’t think it was a penalty, we got away with one, then all of a sudden we got caught short again and we did nothing to defend it.
“Many times we’ve got that goal at 2-2 and gone on and won.
The technical ability is frightening, the squad we have is extremely good for this level, but that’s absolutely nothing if you don’t want it. You have to have hunger and desire to come out to play.
“We beat Stranraer 7-0 last season and only four of those players that came down played that game. They didn’t forget that so it’ll be sweet revenge for them.
“I’ve no problems with that, they outfought us to a man and that leaves us me with hundreds more questions than answers.
“We played good stuff when we decided to turn up – it’s there, but it’s got to be there for 90 minutes.
“Not everybody is blamable right now but I only had about three or four passmarks on Saturday. You can’t win a game seven men down.
“I hope this is a rude awakening and a big lesson for them as it’s three points dropped.”
Star now have a double header with Newton Stewart, starting with a Tweedie Cup clash at Islecroft on Saturday.
Cup games are sometimes a chance to change things, but Warwick pointed out: “I mixed it up on Saturday and they didn’t take their opportunities.
“We’ve got to get back to working hard. The work rate, effort and passion in training is unbelievable, no one is matching that, but it needs to become apparent on Saturday.
“I don’t know if it’s a collective attitude or just two or three thinking it’ll be easy. We have no divine right to win a game of football, it doesn’t matter who you have in the changing room, you need to win the battle before you win the war.
“Cup games will help, they take your mind off the league. Whatever way the result goes, lets put 90 minutes of hard graft in.”