East Fife boss Gary Naysmith said his side could hold their heads high after pushing Falkirk all the way in the Petrofac Training Cup.
It took the Championship Bairns until injury time to eventually edge out their League Two visitors 3-1 and, in truth, had the Fifers won the tie it would have been no injustice.
Naysmith claimed when the tie was drawn that it was the most difficult his men could have got but they were more than up to the challenge.
The Methil gaffer said: “I said to the boys that it was the start of a journey for us and we wanted to build on the good win against Raith last week.
“We were at sixes and sevens so tweaked things a bit with Fraser Mullen and Kyle Wilkie.
“Once we got to grips with that, from 30 minutes until 60, we were the better team and created the better chances.
“But when you’re on top you have to get on front.
“Did we deserve to take the game to extra time? Yes. Did they deserve to beat us 3-1? No.”
It took the hosts just a couple of minutes to open the scoring and Naysmith would have been livid with the manager in which his side conceded.
Craig Sibbald’s free-kick was swung into the six yard box and Peter Grant was allowed far too much space to nod home.
After a sloppy start to the game the Fifers managed to grab a foothold and hauled themselves level on the 15- minute mark. A long hopeful ball up front was picked up by Kevin Smith who raced in on goal and fired low and hard past Danny Rogers.
The goal fired the Fifers up and Smith was desperately unlucky not to add to his tally on 25 minutes when his free-kick came crashing down off the underside of the crossbar.
Falkirk continued to show that they could cause menace at will, too, and Ryan Goodfellow’s palms were stung by a Will Vaulks piledriver.
The Fifers looked to be holding on to force 30 minutes of extra-time but Bob McHugh left them sickened by lashing home in the 90th minute.
Last season’s Scottish Cup finalists completed the victory when former Raith Rovers and Dundee striker John Baird made it three a couple of minutes later.