Archie Macphee is confident Elgin City can recover quickly from Saturday’s setback and relaunch their League Two promotion bid.
The on-loan Formartine United player, back for his fourth spell at Borough Briggs, is urging team-mates to forget the defeat to Edinburgh City and focus on the flurry of approaching fixtures.
Macphee felt ring-rustiness had played a part in the 2-1 loss.
The 28-year-old – who netted in his last Elgin appearance as they beat Cowdenbeath just before the first lockdown – said: “I’m happy to be back involved and, hopefully, we can kick on from here.
“It was a setback today but we just need to regroup and go again in the next game.
“Apart from the two friendlies – against Forfar and Keith last week – this was my first game in a year since I played on loan last season, so I’m glad to be back.
“But we got off to a slow start and it was an uphill battle from then on in.
“The games will be coming thick and fast and we just need to concentrate on ourselves and the next game.”
Former Scotland international Gary Naysmith couldn’t have hoped for a better start to his Edinburgh City managerial career, with his side scoring two goals in the opening 11 minutes.
With little over two minutes on the clock, Rafa De Vita broke forward for the visitors and slotted in striker Ouzy See, whose driven ball was forced home from close range by Josh Campbell.
Then a free-kick by captain Craig Thomson from the left picked out Robbie McIntyre unmarked in the box to slot home number two for Edinburgh.
Elgin’s only first half offering was a Russell Dingwall free-kick which was straight at Calum Antell.
Totally against the run of play, Elgin halved their deficit five minutes before the break.
Macphee’s free-kick was headed across the box by Brian Cameron and Josh Peters fired home a sweet volley.
Peters had a sniff of goal from a Tony Dingwall cross two minutes after the break, but just failed to connect in front of goal.
Kane Hester had a goal ruled out for offside for Elgin, with Campbell netting from a corner at the other end only to be penalised for a foul.
A Macphee corner for Elgin forced Edinburgh keeper Antell to slap the ball away from right under his crossbar on 71 minutes.
Elgin threw on their remaining subs, while top-scorer Hester was forced to limp through the remaining minutes with an ankle injury which is likely to rule him out of Tuesday’s Scottish Cup tie at home to Ayr United.