Falkirk boss John McGlynn admits ‘crazy’ defending cost his side big time against Hibs

John McGlynn admitted he couldn’t put a finger on his why his Falkirk side produced a “crazy” defensive first-half display against Hibs on Saturday in the Scottish Premiership.

The Bairns’ hopes of finishing fifth above the Easter Road outfit were all but ended with two games remaining in the top flight after a 3-1 defeat - with Hibs scoring easy three goals before the break at the Falkirk Stadium. A potential European berth was not of the question after last weekend’s 1-0 win over Motherwell, but McGlynn’s team again - much like the Scottish Cup semi-final exit - failed to deliver when it really counted.

Josh Campbell opened the scoring for the visitors after just three minutes, heading home at the back post from Jordan Obita’s corner after he was left unmarked. The attacker brushed off Hearts loanee Lewis Neilson with ease. It got worse for Falkirk when Campbell nodded home his second 20 minutes in, with Leon McCann and Connor Allan guilty of not getting close enough. The third was another frustrating goal to lose, with Obita powering home after Felix Passlack was allowed to get his deep cross away. Aston Villa loanee Ben Broggio did pull one back for the Bairns with 17 minutes remaining, but his fine long-range effort was only a consolation.

Falkirk have to defend better, says John McGlynn

Pointing out his players’ failings, frustrated boss McGlynn said: “Hibs are a big, strong physical team, that's the way they played as well, they used all of that. But we have to stand up and be counted, we've got to defend it much, much better. We don't defend it. And we lose a goal very early which gives Hibs a lot of encouragement. We got back in it after, getting down the sides, but we didn’t create much. We made good openings but our final ball or movement in the box wasn’t quite right. We caught get out again for the second goal and it was another that was badly defended. Our defending was really poor on the day. We had the same defence as last week, they could get a clean sheet against Motherwell, a team that scored three goals against Rangers the week before. That just sums up football. It's crazy how we didn't defend these situations better. The third goal again was scrappy and untidy. We should have stopped the cross from source. Hibs sat deep in the second half and we couldn’t find that final piece of the jigsaw often enough. We scored a good goal through Ben (Broggio) but we didn’t get that second goal to reach that ‘game on’ situation.”

McGlynn also conceded that the hunt for fifth was over: “We are disappointed. We knew that we could go above Hibs today with a win. Now, we have to win two games and hope that Hibs lose two. Mathematically it is possible to finish fifth but I always felt that it was a long shot. Coming into the top six, five points behind Hibs with just five games, it was a tall order to pull off.”

Falkirk’s afternoon was made worse by the injuries to full-back duo McCann and Filip Lissah both going off during the defeat. And the boss admitted that having them both available for Wednesday night’s trip to Tynecastle to take on champions elect Hearts was unlikely.

Falkirk suffer double full-back injuries

The boss explained: “It is early to tell. Leon’s (McCann) hamstring was giving him a bit of bother. Filip’s (Lissah) ankle was giving him a bit of bother. Filip just walked out of the stadium there which is promising because the way he landed out on the pitch at the time - it looked like it could have been a really bad one. It will cause us problems going into Wednesday night’s game because it is so close. There is no real recovery time. Lewis Neilson can’t play either against Hearts so you have to add that into the mix also.”

Meanwhile, Hibs gaffer Gray hailed his players for handing a pressure situation and for bouncing back after three consecutive league defeats - which saw them also suffer four red cards in an unusual run of poor discipline.

He said: "The boys really deserved it. I'm delighted for them, I thought they were brilliant, especially that first-half performance for what we asked the players to do, the game plan, coming to a real difficult place, the surface. I don't enjoy it myself, even watching games on it, I think it's really difficult, but we definitely played the percentages really well, scored three really good goals and then the second half was a real professional performance. Unfortunately the last three weeks have been really tough, frustrating, a bit self-inflicted as we know, but the players got what they deserved for what they've put in in the last three or four games, three games especially. There was a lot of pressure on the players because Falkirk, in the last three games, have moved closer to us, closed that gap. So it was a big performance at the right time for the players and they responded in exactly the right way. The players rose to the occasion."