Albion Rovers boss says giving Kilmarnock a 'fright' in cup pleased him ahead of Lowland League opener

Albion Rovers boss Sandy Clark was pleased to give Premiership side Kilmarnock a ‘fright’ in their final Viaplay League Cup group match, as he insisted the competition has provided great preparation for their Lowland League campaign kicking off this weekend.

The Wee Rovers may be four tiers below the Ayrshire side, but in no way did they disgrace themselves at Cliftonhill in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat.

They gave Derek McInnes’ side a good game and pulled a goal back through Niyah Joseph in 62 minutes to make the Rugby Park side sweat on the three points they wanted to progress to the last 16, after Stuart Findlay and Marley Watkins have given the visitors a 2-0 half-time lead.

Rovers defeated League One Annan in the group stages and gave good showings in their defeats to Championship sides Raith (2-0) and Dunfermline (3-0), as they bowed out of the competition.

So Clark is pleased overall with their showings as they prepare to host Hearts B in their Lowland League opener on Saturday.

He said: ”You are never happy when you lose a game but I think when you look at the performance there are lots of pleasing things in it.

“The League Cup games were all hard on paper and we wanted to use it as preparation for the league campaign, and it has worked really well.

“The guys have taken a lot of praise in every one of the four games we have played in so that is the pleasing thing.

“Did we get close to beating Kilmarnock? I don’t really think so, but we frightened them a wee bit.

“We stopped them from playing, we scored a really good goal.

“Did we have a lot of other chances? Probably not.

“But we were a lot closer to them than a lot of people would have thought and that is down to the hard work and organisation that we had.

“It is a new