CUMNOCK boss Brian McGinty says he and his players have a lot to learn after tumbling to defeat at the hands of Largs Thistle on Saturday.

McGinty’s men fell to a 2-1 defeat in wet and windy conditions at Barrfields – Nock’s second successive league loss on the road after being beaten by Hurlford three weeks earlier.

Cumnock went in to Saturday’s match colder than their opponents after the cancellation of their Scottish Cup preliminary round tie against Tower Hearts seven days earlier – but McGinty refused to roll out any excuses after watching his team emerge empty-handed from their trip to the seaside.

Speaking to the club’s media team after the match, McGinty said: “I thought we got what we deserved, really.

“I don’t think it was a great game. Largs probably deserved it over the piece.

“It wasn’t a good performance from us and overall, as a group – and including myself – I don’t think we were good enough and we deserved to get beat.”

Lewis Davidson fired home the opener after 15 minutes, and though Jared Willet’s spectacular effort midway through the second half pulled Nock level, parity was to be short-lived, with Cory Hughes heading home at the near post 10 minutes later to give the hosts full points.

The conditions didn’t make life easy for either side but McGinty insisted he wasn’t going to resort to blaming the weather for the result.

“We made a couple of tweaks because of how we thought the game might go in the second half,” he said, “but I’m not a big one for blaming the conditions – Largs played on the same park as us and in the same conditions as us.

“When you boil the game down it was a goal from a free kick – a great free kick – and a goal from a set-piece, which is disappointing from our point of view.”

Nock now put the bread-and-butter of chasing league points on hold as McGinty leads his men into three cup ties in a row.

First on the agenda, Upper Annandale visit Townhead Park this Saturday in round two of the South Challenge Cup, before a trip to Keith in the Scottish Cup and a home tie against Ashfield in round two of the Junior Cup.

But McGinty says he won’t be approaching the upcoming ties any differently to the matches Nock have played so far this season.

“We look at every game as a one-off game,” he said.

“You just need to deal with the game in front of you, so we need to take the medicine from today, have a look at what we did wrong and what we can improve on, and then we’ll turn our focus to the cup games for the next few weeks.”