ECSTATIC Whitletts Vics boss Neil Duffy hailed his side as they thrashed local rivals Troon 5-2 in the Ardagh Glass League Cup last night.
But shattered Seasiders assistant manager Matt Maley said his side were well beaten and must improve on their defending.
Former Ayr United man Duffy said: "We had good discipline and set out a shape that we knew could beat them. We knew they would have lots of possession and were happy to let them have it in their half. As soon as they came into our half, we pressed, won it and caught them on the break. Troon have better players than us, we know that, it's just a case of setting up a game plan.
"That has to be one of my most satisfying wins, especially given the amount of effort the boys put in."
He is now looking forward to the league season which starts with a game at Muirkirk on Saturday and said: "We must keep it going now, that's the challenge. We have a young team with five under-21s.
"It's a big season for us, the Ayrshire District League is a tough league. Six or seven teams will be in contention for promotion and it will be tough but three go up and hopefully we can do it. The ambition is to go up but we know it will be hard."
Maley felt missed opportunities cost his side and said: "Whitletts were up the park five times and scored, we were in the box 19 times and didn't score, that was the difference. I told the boys to get three points but if you defend like that we are never going to win the game. If you don't defend and take your chances, you're not going to win. Whitletts caught us on the counter. a couple of times and we re slowing in reaction but we can't be sloppy like that. All credit to Whitletts they come here and won.We don't deserve to get through."
"But we must get ready for Saturday against Irvine Meadow and get our heads in the right place and we said we would start measuring ourselves in the league/ Our objective is to go up but we won't to up unless we start defending better. Hopefully we can turn it around on Saturday."