Edinburgh City boss James McDonaugh speaks on Scottish Cup loss to Hamilton and looks ahead to Stenhousemuir clash

Edinburgh City boss James McDonaugh has admitted Saturday's Scottish Cup clash at Hamilton Academical would have been a stern test even if he had a fully-fit team available.

The Citizens went down 5-0 to Brian Rice's side and exited the competition, but the manager was able to take the positives as well.

In the club's latest edition of #FromTheDugout, McDonaugh said: "I knew it was going to be a difficult game as soon as the numbers came out of the hat in the draw.

"I think a lot of people thought it could have been a good draw and we might have sprung a surprise but I knew it was going to be an uphill task having seen them play on Boxing Day,.

"Colin [Jack, City assistant boss] and I went to see them against St Johnstone [on Boxing Day] and then away to Motherwell. They lost narrowly to St Johnstone but beat Motherwell at Fir Park. I think MOtherwell are a very good team so to see[Accies] win that game, I knew it was going to be really difficult.

"If we'd had our best team out with all our players available it still would have been very difficult. Over the last few weeks our injury list has really taken its toll. We had a good team on the pitch last week but two or three of them were playing while only half-fit, so I think the gulf showed in the end."

City's ongoing battle with Cove Rangers at the summit of League Two is proving fascinating, with the Capital club defeating Paul Hartley's side at Ainslie Park in early December but passing up the chance to take top spot when they were surprisingly beaten by Queen's Park earlier this month.

However, the two clubs are locked in an enthralling battle for the automatic promotion spot, and McDonaugh is gearing up for a big second half to the season without the distraction of cup competition.

He continued: "They're an ambitious bunch of boys and we've done well, historically, against clubs in the Championship and League One so their ambitions our high and it's just about keeping their feet on the ground.

"We know we've done well this season, we've got a good points tally so far, but I firmly believe that the majority of teams in the league will become harder to beat, so I would be very surpirsed to get another 40, 41 points between now and the end of the season.

"We have to try and set realistic goals, but we want to be ambitious. We still want to try and win [the league] but Cove are the team to beat. They're the team to catch, we're just trying to stay in it as best we can.

"We just have to take each game as it comes and keep challenging for the title as long as we can. If not, we'll aim for the play-offs and go into that as strong and healthy as we can."