“A desperately disappointing afternoon.

“Gutted the way the game turned out.

“It is always a tough ask when you come up against Celtic but we went to Hampden full of confidence, and optimistic we could get the club and the supporters into a cup final.

“And it did not happen.

“I thought we started the game ok. We were competitive and did ok with our game plan which was to try and frustrate Celtic and sit in. It has worked for us in the past, looking back at the game at Parkhead.

“Unfortunately the sending off made it more difficult and then we lose the first goal right on the brink of half-time. If we could have got in at 0-0 and regrouped – the gaffer said he would try and change a couple of things at half-time – but the goal has made it an uphill task. To be fair it is a great goal.

“Even at half-time we felt we would get opportunities on the counter-attack and we still felt we had a height advantage so set pieces were going to be important for us. You can still nick a goal.

“Then we concede the second goal, it was my responsibility. Once the second goal goes in, then the game becomes very difficult from that point. It was a killer.

“The Dom sending off, these things can happen. The ball bounces up between two players and Dom, an honest boy, goes to try and win the ball. He saw that the ball was there to be won but there is a collision. These horrible things can happen. Unfortunately that led to Dom’s second yellow and him being sent off.

“When we went to ten men we tried to stick to our principles which we had done in the first 36 minutes. Ok we were a man less, and we give up a bit more of the ball at that point and sit in. We were still confident enough as we work on these situations in training in terms of being a man light, working different ways of attacking and dealing with it. There is also experience on the pitch and we felt we could deal with it, but we lose the first goal. It takes a good effort to beat Joe Lewis from there.

“We have to pick ourselves up quickly and we do not have time to feel sorry for ourselves. It hurts but we have to draw a line under it quickly. We have five huge games coming up post-split and we need to go and get as many points as possible and do everything we can to get the club back into Europe. We can do that by at very least finishing third.

“There is no hiding the disappointment we all feel.

“We want to be in cup finals and competing for silverware. We had an opportunity earlier in the season, and we had another opportunity on Sunday to get to a final. It has gone now.

“The next five games are vital for the club. We cannot let the season peter out and not reach our target which at the start of the season is always to finish as high as we can and qualify for Europe.”