Berwick Rangers boss Thomas Scobbie felt his side probably deserved more after a narrow SFA Cup exit at League Two Forfar Athletic.

Sub Arran Cocks’ 59th minute header was enough to end the black and golds interest in the competition for the season - but a hotly-contested refereeing decision ultimately proved costly for battling ‘Gers.

Lewis Barr was fouled in the box but the penalty appeals were dismissed, while Barr was also denied by a superb diving save from Athletic’s Marc McCallum.

But Scobbie wasn’t interested in any excuses and wants his side to take the big positives from the display into this weekend’s Lowland League game at Broxburn.

Rangers were unlucky to go out of the Scottish Cup.

placeholder image — Rangers were unlucky to go out of the Scottish Cup.

“I thought the boys did excellent. I said to them after I was proud of the performance and the amount of work they put into it,” said Scobbie after.

“I was really disappointed for them as a team because I thought we were excellent, worked to the game plan, had a couple of chances we could have scored. We came up here against a League side and at times we looked like the better side.”

“We should have had went on and scored the goal and probably won the game, but these are the fine margins. Obviously, we’re not in the next round but performance-wise, I couldn’t ask any more of the players, and we just look forward to Saturday now.”

Although Scobbie felt the decision not the award a penalty was ‘really poor’ he didn’t linger on it and said: “It’s frustrating at times because two or three of them are the exact same things, the guys getting pulled back. I spoke to their manager and assistant and they said it was a penalty but clearly the referee doesn’t see it, and then again at the end as well, but the higher up you go you’re always going to get these sorts of decisions.”

“We’ve been needing that performance, although the result didn’t go our way, I think the fans saw a real togetherness amongst the guys and some great individual performances. I’m really proud and it’s something we can build on going into the next part of the season,” he continued.

“Broxburn won’t be an easy place to go, they’ve started really well after coming up from last season but if we can have the same attitude and application that we’ve had today I think we can go there and put on a really strong performance.”