What St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson had to say about penalty claim at Hearts, wonder goals and running out of steam

Defeated St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson hailed his players’ two “wonder goals” but acknowledged that “ultimately, if you concede four goals you are going to lose the game”.

A fine effort from Eammon Brophy and then a stunning strike from Connor Ronan got his men back on level pegging with Hearts, but they were unable to prevent their hosts from rattling in another two to win 4-2, book a place in the Scottish Cup semi-finals and a return to Hampden.

He was annoyed that his men had been denied a penalty prior to the interval, when Andy Halliday went in on Greg Kiltie, which he believes could have set the game on a different path.

“I’m not sure 4-2 tells the true story,” said Robinson. “We dominated large parts of the game with the ball and caused them lots of problems.

“I think there was a penalty decision in the first half and when I see it back it’s quite blatant. But these are things you can’t control.

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“I think we ran out of steam in the last 15 minutes, ran out of energy which is something we need to rectify.

“But the last two games we are starting to see how we want to play. We scored two wonder goals but we didn’t hold the 2-2 long enough, didn’t do our defensive duties right. It’s a simple one v one situation where you use your strength. But we didn’t have that ownership of the game that would have allowed the crowd to get on top of them a little bit. And then [Hearts third goal from Aaron McEneff] it comes back off his knee.

“I have to say even at 2-0 down we were playing well. When we scored the second we thought we could go on and win the game but we didn’t hold onto the ball.”

The performance provided positives that the Paisley boss believes