Cowdenbeath manager Jimmy Nicholl kept his appraisal brief after watching his Blue Brazil side slump to a 5-0 defeat at the hands of Gary Holt’s promotion-chasing Falkirk on Saturday.
“We gave the ball away too cheaply. At the start of the first half when we gave the ball away on the edge of our own box, we were asking for trouble,” he said.
“We’ll just have to pick ourselves up now for Dundee next week.”
Cowdenbeath came into the clash at Falkirk Stadium in confident mood, having picked up four points from their last two games against Greenock Morton and Hamilton Academicals to put real daylight between themselves and Morton at the very foot of the table.
The Fifers started with an adventurous formation, which saw wing-backs Dean Brett and Rory McKeown push up into midfield at every opportunity.
However, the distribution out from the back cost Cowdenbeath dear and they were picking the ball out of the net after just 15 minutes when Rory Loy thrashed home Mark Beck’s flick-on from close range.
The prolific striker then doubled his tally before the half-hour was out.
A fine counter-attacking move from the Bairns saw Craig Sibbald feed Loy through and the striker sped past Thomas O’Brien before driving his effort across Sebastian Usai and into the bottom corner of the visiting goal.
Nicholl threw on Chris Kane for the injured Nathaniel Wedderburn soon after but the fresh legs did little to stem the tide.
Australian keeper Usai won’t want to see a replay of the third goal in a hurry. He attemped to launch the ball upfield but miscued under no real pressure.
Blair Alston controlled well on his chest out before thrashing an unstoppable shot home from 25 yards with half-time approaching.
Kane’s afternoon lasted just 25 minutes before he was replaced by the veteran Jon Robertson after seeing three goals fly in that time.
After Alston’s thunderbolt, Sibbald found space inside the box before slotting home just three minutes after the restart, before Loy completed his hat-trick, picking the ball up from Beck and finding the bottom corner to grab his 19th goal of the campaign.
Cowden have now conceded 11 goals in three games against the Bairns, and travel to second-placed Dundee on Saturday with four points to make up on eighth-placed Alloa with only four games left to play.
Bairns boss Gary Holt said: “We can’t influence the teams above us. We don’t play any of them now so we can’t influence it in that way so we’ve just got to concentrate on ourselves.
“Winning our games is fine but if Dundee and Hamilton win all their games between now and the end of the season, we can’t catch them.
“We just want to keep this run going, that’s three games won and I think three clean sheets as well.”