Falkirk manager John McGlynn expressed his delight at his side’s determination that was shown to earn a first away victory of the season on Saturday, defeating Hibs 2-1 at Easter Road.
“Yeah, we as a whole club are delighted. We had a few sore ones recently, we were losing late goals and we were potentially in that situation today. We’re glad that we got ourselves in front and to be able to hold out. So proud of the players, they put in a hell of a lot of work.”
Prior to Saturday’s match against Hibs, the concession of late goals was becoming a problem for Falkirk in recent weeks.
The Bairns had conceded late in three of their last four games. They had led away from home against both Dundee United and St Johnstone before losing goals late on in both games.
McGlynn was impressed by his team’s character and fight to see the game out in a professional manner.
“It was all about winning for us today. We’ve been in positions where we’ve been winning as I said and we’ve come away with either a draw or not anything at all.
“So it’s a huge three points for us, and from there we want to try and kick on. We had a similar situation, we beat Hearts a few weeks ago, we went to Perth the next again game, we’re 1-0 up and we lose a goal in the last kick of the ball and since then it’s been a little bit of a reoccurring theme.
So I’m glad that we’ve got over that, it’ll give the players a lot of confidence to get through this one.”
Falkirk have had a troubling campaign so far, having lost the core of their squad throughout the summer.
One particular issue has been dealing with set pieces but McGlynn applauded the defensive work his players had to carry out for much of the second half against a new-look Hibs side.
“When we were under a lot of pressure, there were corner kicks, free kicks coming in, things that we’ve been not so good at dealing with and we’ve dealt with them today and they’ve put in an absolute shift.”
It was summer signing Jacob Murrell who stole the show at Easter Road, taking his two goals in the first half brilliantly well, and McGlynn was full of praise for the American.
“They were so clean, he didn’t hesitate for a moment, he just got on to it and great strikes, probably took the goalkeeper by surprise, he hit it so early and so well.
“He’s got himself four goals now, it’s a good return in still a short period of time, so I’m hoping there’s a few more goals to come from Jacob.
“He’s finding his feet now, he’s a strong boy, he’s a quick boy, he’s well built, he’s a lot of what you would want in a striker, he’s scoring goals and the confidence that he’ll gain from that.”
McGlynn revealed he was forced to plan his game plan around what he had seen in Hibernian’s match against Dundee United last weekend, explaining that it took “a little bit of watching” due to it being the only match the Hibs manager had taken charge of in Scotland.
“They played with three 10s, three 10s and a nine so you’ve basically got six players on the front line, it’s basically a 3-1-6 so they’ve got high risk and they’ve got so many bodies forward but then on the flip side if you win the ball back as we did at the first goal and there’s space on the side of the centre-backs then we can score a goal like that.
“So it took a bit of looking at, it took a little bit of watching that game because he’s only got the one game of evidence of what the manager was trying to get his team to play.”
Falkirk return home next Saturday, welcoming Kilmarnock to the Falkirk Stadium, looking to build some momentum.
