KEVIN CAWLEY echoed his manager's words and said Cove Rangers deserved to progress to the next round of the Scottish Cup last Saturday.

On a day where Cawley became the club's joint-top record appearance maker with Bobby Gray on 359 games, Alloa were defeated 3-2 by Cove.

Reflecting on the game and equalling the record, Cawley said: "It's a great honour, [I'm] proud.

"The game, I think Cove Rangers deserved it, they were the better team, they outfought us, played better football than us, and we couldn't really get ourselves going. Credit to them and all the best in the next round.

"Paul Hartley brought me here in 2011, I got my career going and enjoyed it. We had success, I've enjoyed my time here and I've said to people before, it's like a second home.

"I always feel welcome; the fans are brilliant; it's a great club; and it's ran very professionally under Mike Mulraney.

"A lot of good memories and it would have been nice to cap it off with a win against my old manager Hartley, but he's got one over us this time.

"I know what Paul's teams are like, he always sets them up to play high tempo, I know what he's like."

With last night's game against Ayr United postponed due to their cup tie being rescheduled, the Wasps return to league action against Hearts on Saturday.

Cawley continued: "I think there's a wee bit of animosity between the club and Hearts, but I think we need to put that aside, work hard and get back to basics because we've conceded another three goals and I think we need to try and regroup, get a good shape about us and get back to basics.

"It would have been nice to go through but the league's our bread and butter, we need to get ourselves climbing up that table because if we don't it'll be a struggle for us.

"We always go into every game to win, that's the mentality of the club but now we're out, we need to knuckle down and concentrate on the league and get up the table.

"[We need to] go into the Hearts game and be solid because they'll come all guns blazing at us. Get a good week's training in us, [Saturday's game] is put to bed.

"Unfortunately, Trouts [Alan Trouten] came back and got a wee niggle again, but we've got most of the boys back now so that will help us out."