Alloa boss Barry Smith remains confident his side will emerge victorious from their ‘do-or-die’ clash away to Cowdenbeath in the SPFL Championship this weekend.

It was another case of what might have been for the Clackmannanshire outfit as they slumped to a narrow 1-0 defeat to Queen of the South on Saturday, despite dominating for the bulk of the second half.

And the Wasps gaffer reckons the game followed a pattern that has been all too familiar to them this season.

Smith now believes it is vital that his men end their winless run when they travel to Central Park to meet Jimmy Nicholl’s men on Saturday.

He told Advertiser sport: “There is no hiding away from the fact of how big a game it is now this weekend. I will not be hiding away from it and neither can my players. They will all need to stand and be counted.

“I know things are tough at the moment for us, but we will all soldier on together and I am confident the win we are searching for will come against Cowdenbeath. I didn’t think we were at our best in the first half, but in the second half we came out, dominated the play and had the better chances.

“But that is the story of our season – we don’t take our chances then concede from one chance. I would normally give the players a pat on the back for their second half performance, but I cannot accept getting beat now.

“That has to stop now or we are in big trouble. Zander Clark has had two top drawer saves, but they are chances that we should be scoring from no matter what. We have ended up with four strikers on the park trying to get the equaliser late on, but unfortunately it didn’t happen for us.” The Wasps boss was sent to the stand in the melee that ensued following Kyle Benedictus’ red card at the end of the match, but says he doesn’t expect any further action to be taken by the league after clarifying the mixup with the referee after the match.

But while the former Dundee skipper believes the dismissal to have been a harsh one, he also branded his big defender as ‘stupid’ for making the challenge whilst on a yellow card.

Smith said: “The first booking for Kyle was harsh because it is just a tangle of legs. The second one is a free kick, but the problem is that the first one has caused the sending off and the referee has made the decision so we just have to accept it.

“It was a total misunderstaning why I got sent to the stand. I was shouting at my player for being stupid going into the challenge when he had already been booked and the referee thought I was shouting at his assistant. So I would hope that will be cleared up and there will be no further implications.” Smith does expect to have on-loan Dundee forward Phil Roberts available for the weekend crunch match after revealing the decision to take him off was simply pre-caution after seeing the forward limping.

He added: “Phil hasn’t played a full 90 minutes in a while and he is obviously lacking that wee bit of match fitness, and he felt a small niggle as he was tiring so we took him off more as a precautionary thing. I am sure he will be fine for the weekend.”