IT may be the only competition in Scottish senior football not sponsored by a betting company, but the early rounds of the Irn-Bru Cup are often characterised by calculated gambles as managers shake up their teams.

Yet, it was the changes made by East Fife that paid dividends and left Partick Thistle counting the cost of another disheartening loss.

Alan Archibald accepted some of the blame for Thistle’s demoralising defeat, with the Jags manager refreshing his starting line-up with five new faces against the team currently sitting rock bottom of League One. However, for a side with ambitions to bounce straight back up to the Ladbrokes Premiership following last season’s relegation, they should have been able to cope.

Supporters will have nodded their approval at the return of Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo when he slotted in the opening goal midway through the first-half. Following a lackadaisical opening to the second-half, though, Scott Agnew’s equaliser knocked Thistle onto their heels and they were floored moments later.

With the full-time side unable to find a response to East Fife’s energetic display, home manager Darren Young sent on veteran striker Kevin Smith for his 150th appearance for the club and on-loan Hearts youngster Rory Currie, and three minutes later they combined for the latter to drill in the winner. Any optimism engendered by Thistle’s win over Morton seven days previously dissipated in an instant and the full-time whistle was met with vitriol from the travelling support.

“Livi deserved to win, that’s the credit I’ll give them,” said a candid Archibald, who acknowledged the fans’ right to be upset. “They looked like they wanted it more as well. They won all the 50-50 tackles in the second-half and they were first to every second ball, and in a cup tournament you’ve got to make sure you do that.

“It’s just a big disappointment, because we wanted to gather momentum, that was the big thing about the tie. You want to win every game you’re involved in, whether it be the Challenge Cup or the Scottish Cup. After a good performance against Morton we wanted to back it up with a victory and we’ve not done that.”

It leaves Thistle with five defeats from their last eight games and the reaction of some supporters towards Archibald was acrimonious. The second-half collapse had nothing to do with the message coming from the dugout, but by the manager’s own admission there was a worrying lack of fluency about his team as time dragged on. Instead, it was the part-time hosts who finished the stronger and Currie is hopeful his winning goal finds favour both in Fife and at home at Hearts.

“I scored for Hearts reserves during the week in a 5-1 win against Dundee United, so it was good to carry that on,” said the 20-year-old. “I want to come here and do well for the team and help the players win games by scoring goals. Hopefully that reflects back to Hearts and they can see I’m doing well.”