Clyde boss Jim Duffy says his relegated side were running on empty during their League One play-off defeat to Annan last night, as he confirmed the extent of a horror injury for defender Rico Quitongo.
The Bully Wee were beaten 2-1 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate after Benjamin Luissint's late double cancelled out Olly McDonald's opener to send Duffy's men into League Two.
Luck wasn't on Clyde's side as they were forced to make all three of their substitutes before half time, with Barry Cuddihy and Darren Hynes hobbling off inside 15 minutes before Quitongo lost his footing on the pitch and suffered a horror leg break.
And Duffy admits it all took its toll.
He said: "It’s tough to take. I think the overall result was a bit harsh on us to say the least, tonight I am talking about.
"I felt that we more than deserved a win, never mind losing the game. We ran out of steam a little bit in terms of the energy the players put in, with the injuries we had and the resources we had were really stretched to the maximum and ultimately Annan [Athletic] took full advantage of that and full credit to them.
“I want to congratulate Peter [Murphy] and his team. It’s really tough to get through the play-offs and they managed that in beating Dumbarton and ourselves, so they deserve to go up. I’ve got no complaints over the two games, but on tonight's game, I felt we just edged it over the 90 minutes and the score line was harsh.
"It’s a big achievement for them to get into League One, but for us it is about clearing our heads, regrouping, and looking for the challenge next year.
“We had players running on empty and playing out of position. We couldn’t even use another substitute as we had three breaks in the first-half. That definitely hindered us to a certain extent and when you’re chasing a goal you’ve got to take a little bit of a risk at times and almost allow an opportunity against you to catch them on the counter-attack and unfortunately for us Annan took the one chance that came their way.
"That’s football for you, it's not about how many chances you create, it’s about how many chances you take, and Annan took more than us.
“Football is a game where every team thinks that they have the right to be at a certain level, but you’ve got to earn that right. There’s a lot of talking to be done. It’s still raw after the disappointment of tonight but we will let everything settle down over the next couple of days and from Monday onwards we have to start thinking forward because this season is now done.”
On Quintongo's injury, he added: "Overall, I have absolutely no complaints about the attitude and commitment of the players, particularly having the injuries and the serious one to Rico which we think is a definite break.
"It was horrible to see, and players can be shocked by that. It can knock the stuffing out of you when that happens to one of your teammates, so all credit to them for managing to try and focus back on the game again after seeing the distress of one of your teammates.
"There’s a lot of things that didn’t go our way tonight.
"We gave it everything but just fell a bit short."
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