SAUCHIE JUNIORS midfielder Jack Docherty says it was "obvious" to everyone that they were the better team despite penalty shootout loss.

The Reds winger spoke exclusively to Advertiser Sport after his side were beaten 4-3 on penalties in the East of Scotland cup by Bo'ness United.

Docherty said: "It's hard to take, especially after the way we've played. The boys have put everything into it.

"We lost a quick goal, a bit of slack communication, but after that it was obvious to everybody, we were the better team.

"Throughout the full park everyone put everything into it and the ending was just really unlucky as penalties can go either way and unfortunately it wasn't our way today.

"Another day we maybe put three or four past them but I mean it's just football this sort of stuff happens."

Docherty was able to tap in the ball after a goal-mouth scramble to level the score at 2-2.

"It was a bit of a blur," he said. "Everybody was going for it, and it just seemed to pop up for me and I'm just glad to get in, especially when we were behind as it was a good confidence booster to get us back up and running.

"We stemmed from that, and we played some brilliant football."

Despite Docherty's involvement in the team's attack he's had a relatively quiet season when it comes to goals.

He said: "It's not like I'm not trying as it's sometimes difficult but goals like today it's a big confidence booster for myself. I'll obviously be looking to add more to the tally."

Speaking about the team's fitness and mentality when it comes to extra time he continued: "We've not had many games that have gone into extra time, and I mean on this park 90 minutes is tough.

"Especially in the winter when it's chewed up a bit it's hard on the legs. Everybody ran themselves into the ground and it was a great team performance regardless of the result and we are all happy with how we played."

Looking to take this momentum forward, Docherty added: "It just shows we need to push on and keep performing like that, we had a game last week which wasn't really our sort of game in terms with how we like to play so again if we just cut that out and focus on more games like this in our future I think we will do really well."