COWDENBEATH boss Dougie Hill branded their defeat at Broomhill last midweek as their worst performance of the season but was encouraged by their efforts in their most recent outing.

The Blue Brazil were beaten 2-0 by their fellow Lowland League strugglers in Dumbarton last Tuesday, but reacted positively in a scoreless draw with Hearts B on Friday night.

Hill's side had hoped to move further away from the bottom end of the table in their first of those fixtures, but the West of Scotland outfit claimed a first win in many weeks, which came after Cowden had produced a promising showing against Celtic B, who defeated Broxburn Athletic 5-1 on Saturday, in a 2-2 draw at Central Park.

Hill was keen to point out that Hoops match was one of four decent performances in their previous five matches, but said: "I have to say that the performance against Broomhill was our worst of the season by far, and it was puzzling after such an encouraging show against Celtic B three days earlier.

"That one came after a good Scottish Cup win at League Two Spartans, so we went to Broomhill in confident mood, but the performance was terrible.

"Everything we did so well in the Celtic, Bo'ness United and Spartans games, just did not happen against Broomhill, and the goals we gave away were through terrible errors.

"But, on Friday night, we played like we did against Celtic and Spartans, and created good chances and defended well, and produced our first shut out of the season.

"We have to try and get more consistency into our performances to get wins on the board. Losing midfielder Matty McDonald after 10 minutes, through a tight hamstring, didn’t help things at Broomhill, but he was back against Hearts and played effectively in centre midfield and that helped greatly."

Without a game this week through it being a South Challenge Cup weekend, Cowden have a chance for a number of their injured players, such as Paul McLean and Danny Swanson, to recover in time for the next league game at Berwick on November 23.

"If we get the likes of Paul and Danny back for this game it can give us a good strength of squad and we have to start getting wins on the board," Hill added.

"Draws like against Celtic B and Hearts B are decent results, but we need to get three point hauls from games over the next few weeks to improve our league position."