Gray: Pentland cup final pain was self-inflicted
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Pentland United boss Michael Gray pulled no punches after his side's Colin Macleod Memorial Cup final loss to Wick Groats.
From being 1-0 up and going in at half-time level at 2-2, a below-par defensive display saw United's perennial rivals run away to a 5-2 victory.
Andy Mackay's early strike and a further goal from Luke Manson had spectators bracing themselves for a close and keenly-contested second-half only to see errors at set-pieces hand the cup on a plate to Groats.
Gray, who last week warned his players not to walk off the pitch asking themselves 'what if', could only stand in the dugout in disbelief as his normally reliable defence had a collective nightmare.
And he made no excuses for his side who were indeed walking off that pitch mumbling to themselves, 'what if'.
He said: "We brought our own pain upon ourselves.
"Our defending at set-pieces was very poor and three of the five goals we let in came via that route.
"Wick pumped some high balls into our box and nobody in our defence showed any leadership.
If you make mistakes and you are not punished, you keep on making mistakes
"Their first three goals came from set-pieces. We hesitated on each occasion and it cost us dearly.
"It was if we had applied the 'Swiss Cheese' principle to the art of defending as we left plenty of holes for them to exploit.
"Their fourth came from a defensive mix-up as well. The fifth one is possibly the only one you can make an excuse for as we were pushing forward in trying to get one back when the game was at 4-2.
"I said to them at half-time to be more defensively astute but unfortunately, we conceded some silly goals.
"It was 'after you Claude, no after you' type defending – no one was prepared to assume defensive responsibility.
"The one positive I can draw from our defensive display is that our mistakes were punished.
"If you make mistakes and you are not punished, you keep on making mistakes. Maybe Wick Groats have given us a lesson in not to make these errors any more."
There is the old adage of the occasion of a cup final putting extra pressure on players to the point where they do not play as well as they usually do.
Gray however is not buying into such an excuse.
He added: "No I don't think there was any stage fright because it was a cup final.
"As I said last week, some of the boys played in the Highland Amateur Cup final which we won last year so no stage fright here.
"Offensively, we were superb. When we attacked, we got at Groats. But we took our foot off the gas when 1-0 up and it cost us."
