ALLOA goalkeeper Neil Parry made his first start for more than month on Saturday and says his team won't be disheartened by the result.

Parry played for the first time since injuring his calf on October 13 and says the team will dust themselves off after Queen of the South won 2-0 to leave Alloa on the bottom of the table.

"It just wasn't our day," he told Advertiser Sport: "We didn't play great and I think every one of us can play better than that, but we're not going to get downhearted, we've been in positions like this before.

"We need to keep confidence in the group, we know we've got a really good core of players who can compete at this level, so we'll dust ourselves down."

Parry continued: "Every game we've shown we can compete, even this season in games we've lost, we've more than competed [and] maybe just given away silly goals.

"I think we definitely fancied our chances [on Saturday], we've had a good record against Queen of the South of late so there's no reason to think we couldn't go and get the result.

"To be honest, I think we just had a bad day at the office, and didn't play well.

"It wasn't through a lack of effort, but sometimes you have those days and it just seemed there was big gaps between defence and midfield and then midfield and up front and we looked a bit disjointed.

"It was a pretty torrid game and one of those where [it was always going to suit] the team who scored first."

Despite the poor performance and result, Parry was thrilled to be back playing.

The keeper was just getting back into his stride after months out through a hamstring injury and Covid disrupting the game when he injured his calf.

Parry said: "It's been really frustrating; starting the season – I had that injury last year – then managed to get back, then Covid struck, then I started the Betfred [Cup] quite well, feeling sharp and then it's really disappointing [to get injured again].

"In the grand scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse. I probably came back a week earlier than we thought so it was brilliant to be back playing.

"You don't realise how much you miss not being involved on a Saturday and being able to help the team out, so from a personal perspective it was great to be back but just a really disappointing result.

"It's a bad result but we know if we keep doing the right things, then things will turn and we'll start getting the wins we need on the board."