Skipper Scott Brown wasn’t looking to sugar coat things when he spoke to RedTV after Aberdeen’s Premier Sports Cup exit at Stark’s Park.

“We didn’t play well enough to win the game, simple as that. There’s no excuse about tiredness or the number of games, we just didn’t perform well enough throughout the whole team.

“It was a very disappointing performance that’s brought us back down to earth. Every defeat is hard to take and we have to learn from it. It’s a squad game and we all have to take responsibility.

“We were in complete control at half-time and to go from there to losing to two sloppy goals, it’s not like us and we need to knock that out of our game. Second half, we didn’t create a lot of chances, we ended up going quite long and being a bit one dimensional and Raith dealt with that really well. We ran out of ideas and that’s frustrating.

“We have to reflect on that. We’ve got a long flight coming up ahead of the Qarabag game, and that will give us a chance to look at where we went wrong and why we went wrong as well.

“We’ve done really well the last few weeks but now the lads have to react to a defeat and give a performance on Thursday night. It wasn’t good enough today, we have to be honest about that but it’s one game, a very bad result of course, but bouncing back is what football is all about.

“Across a season you always have these setbacks and disappointments but the big thing is how you respond to them, and that we come back fighting. Myself, Joe and the management staff will look to lift everyone now because we know it’s a sore one to take for everyone at the club, the supporters.

“The good thing about football is there’s always another game coming up quickly and we have a massive one coming up against Qarabag on Thursday.”