Airdrie gaffer Ian Murray reckons their defeat to Partick Thistle can be the fuel that fires their season.
The Diamonds suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat at Firhill as the Jags came from behind to consign Murray's men to their first defeat of the season.
Dale Carrick netted for the second time in as many games to break the deadlock after 36 minutes, but Partick levelled within four minutes through Brian Graham amid claims for offside.
There was controversy surrounding the winner as well as Airdrie were denied a penalty and Partick went straight up the field and bagged the decisive goal through a Blair Spittal strike after an hour.
But ahead of a trip to his former side Dumbarton on Saturday, Murray has called on his players to channel the pain of this defeat into their promotion push.
Murray, whose side are third and three points off leaders Cove, said: "The attitude towards the game and our quality was very good and if we do that most weeks we'll be very hard to beat.
"We've taken a knock today, but I've said to the players that these games where you don't get what you deserve fuel your hunger to not feel like this again.
"So we are upset and disappointed, but we are raring to go now.
"There's 25 games to go and there's fire there, that's for sure.
"It's early days, but we don't want to be playing catch-up.
"There was another great result for Cove Rangers, Falkirk dropped points and we've dropped points, but now we go into a wee series of games where the league starts to sort itself out.
"Coming here second week in has its pros and cons."
Despite the defeat, Murray was enthused by the performance of his new-look side.
And he admitted while the result didn't go their way, it was a pleasure to see his side dominate a side who were playing in the Championship last season.
Murray added: "It was entertaining, not just for neutrals, but I was entertained by the game.
"I really enjoyed watching us play and the way we went about our business - our workrate was exceptional and our quality at times was really good.
"We got ourselves in the right positions in the final third numerous times.
"Yeah, of course, at times our delivery could have been better but we've got two young full-backs who are learning league football.
"So I'm really happy with the players, their commitment, attitude and performance, but, of course, I'm disappointed with the result.
"Their goal before half-time made the team talk more difficult because I was really happy with how we'd done and really frustrated with conceding the goal.
"It was touch and go if it was offside, but even with that we should be defending better.
"I thought for large parts of the first half and the second half we were the better side.
"Goals do change games, but our attitude and mentality was still very good throughout the match.
"And you could see in the last 10-15 minutes it was an Airdrie onslaught and it looked like we might knick an equaliser and at that point we'd be favourites to go on and win it."
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