Ayr United manager Lee Bullen praised his players belief as they came from behind to beat Kilmarnock 2-1 in the Ayrshire Derby last week.

The Honest Men and Killie faced off for the third derby of the season on Wednesday night at Rugby Park.

It was the hosts who struck first as they took the lead early on in the first half through Fraser Murray.

Veteran winger Chris Burke squared the ball across the box to the 22-year-old who made no mistake in front of goal to slot past Ayr goalie Aidan McAdams.

United were not behind for long however and quickly levelled the scoring seven minutes later. A corner fell to the edge of the box where it was poked goalward by Sean McGinty and flicked in by James Maxwell.

The two sides went in at the break level to set up a tense winner-takes-all second half.

It was the Honest Men who grabbed the victory late on in the second period,

Patrick Reading’s thunderbolt of a strike beat Killie keeper Zach Hemming, sealing the victory for the away side.

Speaking to the Advertiser, Bullen said: “In the first half, we showed our Achilles heel again by losing an early goal, which is something we have to look at and avoid going forward.

“But the reaction and the character shown after that especially in the second half was second to none, it was truly phenomenal.

“You can see slowly but surely there is a bit of a belief coming back into the players even if they do go a goal down.

“There is a belief that the game is not over and heads don’t go down .”

Next up for Ayr is another league match in the Scottish Championship this weekend against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

Bullen is keen to ensure the derby win is not a flash in the pan performance with another positive result in the Highlands.

He said: “We have got to keep it going now, we have got a tough game up at Caley on Saturday.

“Hopefully, the players can put in a similar performance.

“We will aim to do that by training as we have been and not letting the standards drop.”