Esmael Goncalves: Raith Rovers boss Ian Murray reveals on loan striker played in cup final loss after 'a really tough week personally'

The 31-year-old Guinea-Bissau forward, who is on loan from Livingston, only lasted the first 55 minutes of the showpiece at Falkirk Stadium before being substituted for Aidan Connolly.

"It was so difficult,” gaffer Murray told the Fife Free Press. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Perhaps we would have changed one or two decisions looking back on it now.

"Isma (Goncalves) has has a really tough week personally. He had a problem back home which was sad for him and I think you could see on the pitch that it maybe affected him.

"He assured us beforehand that he was okay to play.

"And look Isma on his day can be a great player and sometimes he can be frustrating, but that is football. We’ll look back on it and try to learn from the mistakes that we made. We won’t dwell on it."

A frustrating day for Raith saw them thwarted by inspired Accies keeper Ryan Fulton on more than one occasion, who made a sensational stop from Lewis Vaughan in the second half.

Murray said: “I didn’t have a great view of it but I have been told it was a wonderful save.

"I wasn’t sure because I was simply expecting the net to bulge. I thought we had been given a penalty too but I was told again afterwards that it wasn’t one.

"We had some other chances too, in the first half we had a couple of headers that were missed. We peppered their goal at points but fair to play Hamilton Accies because they defended their box ever so well.

"You can’t dwell on things too long. You don’t enjoy wins for too long so you certainly cannot dwell too much on your defeats and your disappointments.

"We have to use this going forward and who knows, this could be the one of the best things that could have happened to us.

"But at the moment it certainly doesn’t feel like that and we have to acknowledge that we have had a fantastic opportunity to win a trophy today and we didn’t do that.”