SHIRE GO DOWN FIGHTING

Shire had to bow to the inevitable and go out of the Co-operative Insurance Cup at the hands of St. Mirren, but not without a heroic effort.

The team fell 3-0 behind after 17 minutes but found the courage and form to fight back to 3-3 with strikes from Stephen McGuire and a double from Andy Rodgers.

Eventually the full-time team ran out 6-3 winners but there were more positives than negatives from the afternoon.

St. Mirren striker Billy Mehmet walked away with the sponsor's Man of the Match award after scoring five of his team's goals but Shire coach Jim McInally believes his team deserve praise too.

"It was better to lose 6-3 than 3-0," he said.

"People come to football matches to be entertained and, when push comes to shove, I  would always prefer to win games 3-2 or 4-3 than a boring 1-0. That may not win you a league but people pay decent money to watch games, and that's theway we will continue to play."

But the coach maintains there are important lessons that must be learned and they were once again illustrated by the encounter with the Paisley side.

"I have been saying for some time we need to be able to play better when we don't have the ball and while we look really threatening when we have possession, we must defend better.

"To be fair to our defence they won't come up against strikers like that every weekbut we need to believe in ourselves, we need to pass the ball and we need to work hard when we don't have the ball."

Debut keeper Gavin Sorley had to pick the ball out of the net three times before he had even made a save but the coach was happy with his performance, despite losing six goals.

"The players were trying to protect him too much," he said. "So much so they were kicking the ball out of his hands but once they realised he didn't need their attention I  thought he did OK.

"There was one save in the second half which I  thought was great when he clawed the ball away from his top left-hand corner."

And Jim was enthusiastic not just about the performance but also over the quality of his team's three goals.

"The goal we scored wouldn't be bettered most weeks in the Premier League. I  spoke to Andy Millen after the game and he said they found it hard to fault their players forany of our goals."

But the hard part is now to maintain standards. "It augurs well for the league games but we do need to learn to defend better , and that means starting from the front and from the midfield as well."

A match report is available to read online. Click on fixtures on the main menu and then on the orange scoreline.

Post Match is now available on shireTV. Jim McInally, Andy Rodgers, new keeper Gavin Sorley and Buddies' manager Gus McPherson all give their views.

Match highlights are now on shireTV as well.

To watch shireTV just click on the link on the main menu and follow the on-screen instructions.