He said: “It’s good for the players to suffer a defeat. To get that horrible taste so they think ‘I don’t like this and I don’t want it too often’.

“Hopefully that lights the fire and they take it into Saturday.

“You are going to lose games of football. We don’t want to, and certainly didn’t go out to lose on Wednesday, but it will happen and we need to give St Johnstone credit – they were good, experienced and have a lot of know how.

“But we knew there would come a point when we would have a setback and the great thing about football is that there’s always another game, and we’ve got one really quickly.

“Since I’ve come in, we’ve bounced back from any little bit of adversity.”

Holt, meanwhile, reckons Accies are a template for his side as Livingston seek to establish themselves in the top flight.

He added: “Hamilton are a great example to us. How they play, the recruitment and how they don’t get too down after a run of games when they are not winning every week.

“That’s the mentality side of things and something we need to consider. They have done it and you can’t dismiss their success.”

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