IT has been a case of out with the old and in with the new at Falkirk at the start of the new year, and on the evidence of their performance at Somerset Park on Saturday as they prevented Ayr United going top of the Championship, they may well yet have the resolve to avoid dropping into League One.

The hosts could find no response to Zak Rudden's scrambled winner, as a Ray McKinnon side with five new faces in from the start finally ended their long run at the bottom of the table by overhauling Partick Thistle.

It is a small step on the road to salvation of course, but the spirit shown by the Bairns to dig this crucial three points out will have their long-suffering supporters believing that better times may just be around the corner.

Certainly, that is the forecast from one of those new arrivals, former Scotland full-back Paul Dixon, who believes that his manager is now putting the blend of youth experience together that can see Falkirk out of their dicey predicament.

"It's very satisfying to come to a place like this, knowing how well Ayr are doing this season, and get three points," Dixon said. "It's a very good day's work.

"The manager said that there's a lot of new faces and it's going to take us time to gel, but there are good early signs and hopefully we can take the positives and build on it for the games coming up.

"We had good professionals on the pitch with experience like Joe McKee and Ian McShane. It's guys like us who are going to need to help the lesser experienced players through the games."

Rudden's goal early in the second half was far from a thing of beauty, and owed a fair bit to a spot of slack handling from Ayr keeper Ross Doohan as he spilled a speculative Ross MacLean effort. But it was a lesson in alert striker play that has become the trademark of the 18-year-old Rangers prospect.

As the ball squirmed loose, there was only one man who was going to get onto it, and Rudden forced the ball home to signal an outpouring of joy and relief from the travelling fans.

They now had something to hold onto, and boy did they throw everything into it, with players going down left, right and centre with cramp and strains.

"Unfortunately it's a sign that a lot of the boys hadn't played recently," Dixon said. "My last game was on November the 13th in the Checkatrade Trophy against Grimsby.

"The boys put in a massive shift to get us the three points."

The cheer that greeted the Falkirk goal was nothing compared to the one at the final whistle, particularly as Ayr had somehow contrived to miss three gilt-edged opportunities to level within the space of a few seconds in a remarkable passage of play just before the end.

That just served to amplify the impact that Lawrence Shankland's absence with a calf injury had on his side, as the hitman would surely have converted at least one of the opportunities Ayr carved out.

Perhaps the chief sinner was captain Steven Bell, who sclaffed the initial attempt of the stramash from three yards with the goal gaping.

“The way it came to me it was sort of in-between me," Bell explained.

"I’d need to see it back, but I should maybe have gone with my left foot.

“The ball has hit the inside of my ankle and then Ross Docherty had a chance, though I didn’t see it as I was too busy kicking the post.

“Ross misses the chance and then it comes right back to Craig (Moore) and he’s inches away. He takes a touch and he’s slipping backwards.

“Its was just one of those days. We had other chances apart from that. There was a corner kick came right across the six-yard area and no one was there to put it in.

“It was a frustrating day all round, as you can imagine.”