Peter MacDonald believes the Dundee players will bounce back strongly following Saturday’s desperately disappointing Ramsdens Cup exit.
“Peaso” had given his side the lead against Stenhousemuir in the quarter-final tie but former Dens favourite Sean Higgins came back to haunt the Dark Blues with a cracking equaliser.
The teams were still level after 30 minutes of extra time with a penalty shoot-out being required to find a winner.
And it was the League One part-timers who held their nerve with Sean Lynch dispatching the deciding sudden-death spot-kick past Kyle Letheren in the Dundee goal.
It was a hammer blow for the Dark Blues, especially as over the course of the regulation 90 minutes they had created more than enough chances to win the game.
However, with a crunch Championship match with league leaders Hamilton looming large on the horizon on Saturday, MacDonald who was this observer’s man of the match by a country mile insists the Dundee management team of John Brown and Ray Farningham won’t let the players dwell on what might have been.
MacDonald said: “We didn’t take our chances. We got punished because of that and that’s what happens in football.
“We had 90 minutes to win the game followed by extra-time but we didn’t do it and when it goes to penalties it’s always 50-50.
“We’ve got a big game against Hamilton this week. We want to win the league so we’ll come back in Monday morning and start working hard again, preparing for Accies.
“The gaffer and Jinky (Farningham) will lift us and get us going again.”
MacDonald admitted that fatigue may have been a factor in the defeat.
He said: “It was a hard one to take. I felt we were all right for the first 15 minutes of extra-time but I thought we tired a bit after that.
“I don’t know if it was noticeable but we have played a lot of games in the last wee while which might have been a factor.
“But we don’t want to make any excuses. Stenny had a game plan which they stuck to and now they’re through to the semi-final.”
The Warriors’ John Gemmell admitted that the Warriors had used some online comments as motivation.
He said: “It wasn’t a shock result. We saw things on the internet where people were asking where the final will be played if Dundee are playing Rangers and things like that.
“I mentioned it to a few of the boys when we were in the dressing-room before the game.”
However, MacDonald stressed the Dundee players had taken nothing for granted against the League One side.
He said: “We never took Stenny lightly. The gaffer would never allow us to do that and neither would we as players.
“We knew all about them for sure so we didn’t overlook them.
“I would just like to congratulate their manager Martyn Corrigan and wish them all the best in the semi-final.”