LISTEN: Bad News Bairns - Peter Grant is out for the season

The strapping defender tore his cruciate ligament against Livingston and sat out the midweek Scottish Cup defeat to Dundee.

But he returned to the centre of the defence for the trip to Ibrox and played through the pain in a commendable performance. It was only after the 1-0 defeat to Rangers that Falkirk established something was seriously wrong. Scans later showed the extent of the injury and Grant went under the surgeon’s knife on Tuesday.

Boss Peter Houston explained: “There was nobody near him at Livingston when he did it, and came off with swelling in his knee. The swelling went down, he trained and felt good, he played Ibrox – with his cruciate gone!

“But that’sd Peter Grant for you – he’s a big strong boy. His knee sweeled up again and we got it scanned and that showed the injury.”

It’s the second cruciate for the defender who injured the ACL in his other knee while playing youth football at Norwich City.

“That tends to happen,” explained Houston. “When one goes you over compensate and the other tends to go in the future too.

“But if there’s one person who will work really hard to get back, it’s Peter. We’re thinking we’ll aim for the start of next season, but it could be even longer.

“He’s having an op from the same surgeon who operated on his other knee and if it’s a good op his rehab will begin as quickly as next week.”

Boss Houston bemoaned his club’s bad-luck as not only is Grant badly injured, Graham Bowman suffered a snapped achilles tendon on-loan at Stenhousemuir and Will Vaulks broke his hand in an accident at home!

“It’s not been a great week injury-wise – and we’ve not even had a game!

“We have options of where we can cover. We brought Kevin McCann in, David McCracken is fit and Tom Taiwo is back from his own cruciate injury. Will should be fine to play (against Raith Rovers on Saturday), his cast is off but his hand is heavily bandaged and well protected. He’s trained as normal.”