JIM Goodwin held his hands up after Alloa’s Scottish Cup exit as he blamed his half time tactical switch for the defeat.

The Wasps had blown away their Premiership opponents with a thrilling opening 45 to lead 2-0 thanks to goals from Alan Trouten and Kevin Cawley.

However, a decision to sit back and try and catch the Saints on the break proved costly in a thrilling second half fight back for the hosts.

Goodwin told Advertiser Sport: “I am gutted, to say the least.

“I thought the boys were excellent first half and everything went as planned. I couldn’t have been any happier at half time.

“We deserved to be in front. There’s no doubt about it.

“I think I have tried to be too clever at half time in changing the tactics. We knew that St Mirren would commit a lot of bodies forward and I felt we could hit them on the counter attack.

“It didn’t work out as we had hoped.

“I’ve enjoyed a lot of plaudits recently but I need to take responsibility for that in the second half. That’s on me.

“It’s an expensive mistake. I have been quite lucky up to now in that most of the decisions I have made have been good ones.

“The message I gave to the players was a wrong one and I am disappointed with myself for that.”

Alloa looked to be cruising to a cup shock until Neil Parry spilled a Simeon Jackson drive at the feet of Cody Cooke who tapped home.

This swung the momentum the way of the hosts with Ethan Erhahon levelling, before Kyle McAllister curled a wonderful effort home in the dying seconds to complete the unlikely comeback.

While refusing to lay any of the blame at the feet of Parry, Goodwin admitted the first goal changed the course of the game.

He continued: “I knew they would commit bodies forward and just felt if we had been a bit more patient on the ball then we could have forced them out and exploited the space behind with Kevin, Connor (Shields) and Dario (Zanatta).

“Neilly is one of the best keepers outside of the Premiership. It is one of those moments where he’s not had a lot to do and it’s a lapse of concentration. They were just the first ones to react to it.

“That allowed St Mirren to come back into it.

“But, we knew about the threat of McAllister and that he likes to come inside on is left foot. We should have forced him down the outside.

“In hindsight, I look at it now and just think that we should have kept doing what we were doing.

“Fair play to St Mirren for not throwing the towel in. Oran Kearney will be very proud of his players.

“It’s gonna take me a few days to get over it.”