Loons know where they must improve

FORFAR 1 INVERNESS CT 2

Forfar Athletic ended their Betfred Cup group winless after Inverness Caledonian Thistle came from behind to win 2-1 on Saturday.

While the Loons finished bottom, Inverness finished second but failed to reach the second round through the back door.

Station Park assistant manager Stuart Balmer was disappointed but looking ahead to the start of the league campaign.

“It was a difficult game for us coming off the back of the Falkirk game,” he said.

“As an exercise it was useful against an ex-Premier League team. We have got to be better at taking our chances however.

“We need to defend better too and there are things we can work on during the week. Obviously they have a different style of play and they are a better team than we will be up against most weeks.

“We have got to take positives from the game. We got in behind them a couple of times and had another couple of chances when we didn’t make the goalkeeper work, which was disappointing. We scored a good goal but we need to defend better.

Balmer admitted that the Bet Fred Cup had been used by the management team as part of their pre-season build up.

“I know that’s not great for the Forfar fans to hear but it is difficult for part time teams to make a go of the league as it is at the moment. So we have to use these as pre-season games to a degree. We have to be realistic; it would be expecting miracles from our boys to qualify for the latter stages.

“Overall I think we have done OK. We held our own to a degree today but the goals were disappointing. Week in week out we are conceding goals which is something I am not particularly chuffed about.”

Marc Scott put Forfar ahead after Liam Polworth missed a penalty. However George Oakley and John Baird ensured all three points left Station Park with the visitors.