Albion Rovers boss Darren Young has urged his players to stop gifting goals to the opposition ahead of tonight’s Irn-Bru Cup clash with Hamilton under-20s.

Young has been tearing his hair out in the opening two weeks of the league season as the fine defensive form Rovers showed in their Betfred Cup campaign has deserted them.

Individual errors led to Young’s men falling to a two-nil home defeat against Brechin at the weekend, and he is hoping that his players have now got those aberrations out of their system.

“We lost two poor goals, similar to the week before, and didn’t take some good chances at the other end,” Young said. “If you do that you get punished and one or two boys could have had a couple apiece.

“It’s frustrating to lose simple goals too because you work so hard all pre-season and have three clean sheets out of four against Premiership and Championship opposition in the League cup group section, and then when your bread and butter starts you lose four goals in two games.

“That’s something we’ll be looking to rectify as soon as possible.

“It’s been individual errors and the boys have been holding their hands up which is fair enough and honest of them. It’s about how they react to that now.

“If we were doing something wrong formation-wise or in our tactics we would look at that, but when it’s coming down to individual mistakes then there’s nothing much you can do but try to react well.”

Young admits he is a little in the dark when it comes to what he can expect from his opposition this evening at the Exsel Group Stadium.

“I haven’t really seen them this season and highlights of their games are hard to come by, but we know they will have a good team and good players coming through,” he said.

“They’ve had that for a while now with boys coming through into their first-team, but it’s a game when we’re at home and if we create as many chances as we have in the last few games then hopefully one or two will go in this time and we can keep a clean sheet at the back.

“We played Celtic under-20s last week, and these are young guys who are full-time, fit and hungry to prove themselves and push for the first-team.

“We’re expecting a tough game, especially if we defend as we have been doing.”