St Mirren manager Alex Rae was relieved to see his side make it to the last 16 of the IRN-BRU Cup this afternoon having fought back from a two goal deficit against Albion Rovers in Coatbridge. He said after the match:
“We’re just pleased to be in the next round. The positives are we have got Rocco [Quinn] some minutes and Gary [MacKenzie] some minutes and we had an opportunity to look at one or two things and we’ll assess over the next couple of days, when we watch the footage again, what we can take from it.”
Saints found themselves behind early and the manager is looking for better from his players. He said:
“The fact of the matter is if you defend like that it leaves a lot to be desired. We need to do so much better. I’m not wanting to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes, it is nowhere near what we are looking for.
“It [the return of Quinn and MacKenzie making his debut] gives us options as obviously we are a wee bit short on the ground but we need to dig in because we are playing through a patch just now that is becoming difficult.”
Under-20 player Andrew McDonald had his first outing as a first team player. Alex said of McDonald:
“We wanted to have a look at him as he done well through the week with the reserves [under-20 side] and it gave us an opportunity to see him.”
With the game going to extra-time it was a long debut outing for MacKenzie who also played through the week. Alex said:
“He played 75 minutes in the reserves the other day, we thought we may well have got it done by 90 minutes but obviously had to play another 30 which wasn’t ideal because it runs the risk of injury but it’s in the bank now and so that is a positive.”
