Gaffer Danny Lennon left gutted as his Wasps pay the penalty in shock Petrofac Cup defeat to Elgin

The 47-year-old must now look to pick his players up off the floor as they prepare for a difficult trip to face Raith Rovers at Stark’s Park in the SPFL Championship this weekend.

And the gaffer believes his players need to stand and be counted.

Lennon told Advertiser sport: “We are now looking for everyone, even outside the players at the club, to give their all and make sure we can bounce back. We had two difficult opening league games against teams expected to do well this season, but they are in the past and we see the league now opening up where we believe we will have a better opportunity to start collecting league point. Let’s hope we can start that on Saturday, but we need to up our game.

"I thought we got the ball into great areas against Elgin, but more often than not our final ball let us down. We will certainly work on that and look to put right for Saturday. You can have all the possession you like but you have got to make it count. We got into good areas where I felt we could then perhaps get a wee bit of quality to cause them problems, but the final quality did not come and at least we know what we need to do to make it right.

"We now go into another tough game on Saturday at Kirkcaldy against Raith Rovers, who also lost last night and I have told our players that both managers will be looking for a reaction."

The Wasps' boss was hoping for a good run in the competition, so it was a blow to exit the cup.

He continued: “We are very much disappointed to go out because we put a lot into the game and had so much possession, but I have to give a lot of credit to Elgin City - they have come with a game plan to frustrate it has worked terrifically well for them.

"Although we had a lot of possession of the ball, our clear-cut chances have not really come and probably our best chance came in the last two or three minutes of the game.

"That’s credit to Elgin City and they have had a fantastic start to the season, you see a lot of bigger clubs going out to lesser opposition in these early cup games. It is disappointing from our point of view that we didn’t capitalise on the possession we had.” Lennon was frustrated by both penalty awards which he described as ‘very soft’ and he was especially miffed by the first one which saw the referee give Elgin a goalscoring advantage after a challenge in the box only to then pull play back and award the penalty after the chance was missed.

It has been a season of big changes at Alloa this summer with an almost entirely new squad, but the manager refuses to use that as an excuse for their poor early form.

He said: “I thought the two penalty decisions came at very crucial times in the game and I would like to see them again, but going through my mind at this point of time that both of them were soft, to be perfectly honest.

"I think there was contact in the first one, but the referee then allows the player to get a strike off, for me then they have had their advantage and he can’t then pull it back.

"It’s been a frustrating start, but we can’t keep using the excuse that we have 14 new players and its going to take time. What we have to do is galvanise ourselves and go again. There are pleasing things which we are doing, but there are a lot of things that the players aren’t taking on board that we are asking of them.

"That is part of a manager and coach’s job to keep repeating and repeating until it clicks, but a very disappointing start to the season for us.” The former St Mirren gaffer did reserve special praise for teenage star Ryan Hoggan who sailed through his top team debut to put in a stand out performance on the night in the Wee County side’s only bright spot from the game.

Lennon added: “What was pleasing tonight is I thought young Ryan Hoggan had a fantastic debut and it was good for him to get that under his belt he certainly looks to have a bright future at this football club and in the game.”