Stenhousemuir 2 Stirling 3: Warriors pay price for missed chances

The Warriors led twice through new arrivals Harry Paton and Mark McGuigan, sandwiching a Darren Smith equaliser for the visitors, but eventually fell to a crushing defeat thanks to goals from Callum Morisson and Ross Kavanagh.

And although Ferguson admitted there were positives to take from the performance in a thrilling match, he conceded that results are what he and his players will be judged on.

"The quality of the game is of no interest to me today", he admitted. "It was all about getting points on the board and we've failed to do that.

"We caused them all sorts of problems in the first half, created a number of chances to kill the game and we didn't take them. There were pleasing aspects but ultimately we've lost a home game after going ahead twice.

"We've conceded soft goals today when we've been in positions of strength, and that's very disappointing."

The ding-dong battle, played in front of an impressive crowd of 606, served as a reminder that Stenny will not find League 2 easy this season, after falling through the third tier trap-door last year. And Ferguson knows that his newly-assembled squad will be a scalp for any of the other sides.

"The performance today may have got us a result on another day but we've got to realise that we're a new team in this league and we're going to be a scalp for a lot of the other sides.

"We've not been ruthless enough to win the game today. We started well and should have been a few ahead. Stirling then grew into the game when it was stretched but the goals we conceded were too cheap for my liking.

"We need to be more ruthless."