ALLOA boss Danny Lennon believes his players' second half display in the 4-0 loss at Ibrox is something for them to take confidence from.

The Wasps went in three goals down at the interval with most in attendance fearing the worst in terms of the final scoreline, but the Wee County men battled valiantly and the gaffer now hopes to take the positives from that forward into this weekend's derby against Falkirk.

Lennon told Advertiser sport: “I take a lot of positives from the game, in terms of how well we competed. The attitude and application of the players was fantastic, but when you come to Ibrox to face a big club like this who had a point to prove after coming from a loss to Hibernian, that makes it doubly hard. They were out to show why they believe they are the best in the league at this moment in time. They certainly did that because as well as the quality of the three goals in the first half, they were absolutely first class finishes from their point of view, but like other games we certainly had a helping hand within that and that one the disappointing thing for us. The teams are Worlds apart in terms of size, finances etc. We are a better team than the first game against them. We know a wee bit more about ourselves now and while 4-0 looks bad, it terms of the result, to come here and put on the level of performances we did for the club our size, I thought we did absolutely fine.

“I asked my players prior to coming here to go out and compete and apply themselves with the right attitude and application they would be winners in my eyes, regardless of the score, so we will take these positives from the game and we now have to put them together in the games, when we do not face the top teams like Rangers, with the same quality week in week out. Unfortunately, we will not be playing in such a wonderful environment as this every week, but we will still need to go with the same frame of mind and we cannot let that level of performance drop.”

Alloa had a number of clear cut chances before the end of the first half with the game at 2-0 and Lennon believes a goal for his side at that point might just have changed the whole make up of the match.

The 47-year-old admits who could only admire the performance of Martyn Waghorn, who scored a brace and was a thorn in the side of the Wasps' defence all afternoon.

He said: “It would have been very interesting if Michael Chopra’s shot which came back off the cross bar and the one where Eddie Ferns goes through, but it was wonderful defending from Lee Wallace to get back and probably no other Rangers player on the pitch would have got back. Goals certainly do change games so when Rangers then went down the other end of the park and unfortunately for us Jason Marr's slip allows Martyn Waghorn to capitalise with a fantastic finish. I thought Waghorn’s movement was terrific, I thought even as well as we tried to plug the gaps. NASA couldn’t have kept track of him with his movement, he was absolutely fantastic.”

The former St Mirren boss was disappointed with the error for the first goal, but believes his men deserve praise for the way they battled on and even when they went down to ten-men in closing stages following Eddie Ferns dismissal.

Lennon added: “The first goal we lost was a sore one I would like to see it again but from my first point of view I thought Andy McNeil should have picked it up, but other than that if he thought he couldn’t pick it up rather than kick it back into an area in the centre of the goal you have to put it into the Sandy Jardine Stand. Quality players will punish you for wee mistakes, other weeks we might have got away with it with that kind of error.

“My message at half-time was not to allow it to go to four, five or six, which they can do to teams and has happened already this season. So our aim was to stick to our game plan and make sure that we didn’t concede more and while the fourth goal in time added on, put a slight damper on the second half performance, I was still pleased with their efforts. Eddie Ferns made a rash decision, which we all saw, but he has held his hand up and apologised to his teammates which I greatly admire, but that made it even more difficult for us.”