JIM Duffy has praised his side’s attitude after Sunday’s Scottish Cup loss to Rangers at Ibrox.

The team was all but silent in the dressing room after the match and Duffy was heartened by their reaction to the cup loss.

The 57-year-old says it shows the winning mentality which has been instilled in his squad.

He told the Tele: “Generally if a team usually goes to Ibrox and put up a good account of yourself you tend to pat yourself on the back.

“And I think the good thing about the players is that they didn’t want to do that.

“They didn’t want the patronising ‘you did well!’ and just take that from the game - they were genuinely disappointed that they didn’t force the game into a replay and I think that’s a good attitude to have.

“If you’re happy losing matches then that’s a concern.

“So it doesn’t matter who you play, if you’re disappointed about losing that’s a good sign.

“It was a sign that the players felt there was an opportunity there to perhaps get a more positive result.

“To not have a natural striker playing in the game and still create chances was a real positive in the game.

“If Rangers lose Barrie McKay and Kenny Miller from their team, people then say ‘they’re without top players’, but when it comes to our level it’s almost dismissed at times.

“That’s the nature of it and we understand that.

“Then the other attention was all on the Mark Warburton situation as well, so we fully understand that that was important news in Scottish football.

“But it maybe deflected away some of the aspects of perhaps could we have given Rangers a difficult game — and I think we did make it uncomfortable for them.”