Jack Ross says that he doesn’t have to pick his St Mirren players up for Sunday’s Irn-Bru Cup quarter final, because they have done it all by themselves.

The Saints players were devastated after losing at home to Dumbarton last week, none more so than goalkeeper Jamie Langfield whose mistake gifted the points to the grateful Sons.

But as they now gear up to face Ayr United in Paisley this weekend, their manager Ross has no worries about the mental fortitude of his players, as they focus on the many positives from their performance last Saturday.

“There’s always very little you can say immediately after something like that that will make the players feel any better,” Ross said.

“The message after the game was to ask them to retain belief and look at all the positive things that they did in the game, but I’ve been there as a player and there’s no magic words you can say to make them feel better.

“I wouldn’t expect them to, I’d expect them to be disappointed and hurt by it. But we were doing a lot of things well in the game, there was a lot more good things than bad things.

“In our current position though you would probably accept a reverse of that if the result went our way.

“I think for the group, once they got over that real soreness from the result – because they didn’t deserve that – their reaction in training has been good.

“I think they recognise that it was a strong performance. There was still things in it we could do better, but we dominated the game and tried to do as much as we could do win it right throughout the 90 minutes.

“That was encouraging and if we continue to do that then we’ll give ourselves chances of winning games.

“Once a game is gone, it’s gone. You can’t affect it, you can only affect what lies in front of you and that’s what happens in training this week and the game on Sunday, and they have approached it in that way.”

Ross has spoken to his goalkeepers collectively this week as normal, but hasn’t felt the need to have any special conversations with Langfield after his costly blunder.

“We chatted but I speak to my players a lot,” he said. “We talk every day as a group and I’ve spoken to about half the squad individually this week about different things.

“The goalkeepers were amongst them just because of the situation we’ve had this season in not really having a regular number one.

“We’ve had dialogue about it and how we go about it in the best way. That’s not just a knee-jerk reaction, we do that with the players anyway, whether they’ve played poorly or played well.”

It may be argued that the Irn-Bru Cup represents an unnecessary distraction for St Mirren given their dire predicament in the Championship at present.

Ross doesn’t see it that way, as he looks to reward his supporters and instil a winning mentality among his squad.

“I think to begin with, the fact we are still in the competition is good because we have a game, because potentially we might not have had a fixture this week,” he said.

“To have a game on the back of last week’s disappointment is good and certainly the way I’m approaching it is to go and win the game and win the competition.

“We understand that league points are the priority, but I think we need to get into the habit of winning matches and I don’t care whether that’s league or cup games at the moment.

“If we can win on Sunday and progress and maybe even win the tournament, then you create a winning environment and also a positive feeling around the club.

“Importantly, it also starts to give a reward to the supporters so the game is just as vital as any other for us at the moment.”