David Martindale had full belief in his Livingston side despite them falling two goals behind in their Scottish Premiership play-off second leg with Ross County.
Goals from Josh Nisbet and Ronan Hale – who scored the last-gasp equaliser in the first leg – put Premiership side Ross County 2-0 up after 24 minutes.
But Lewis Smith, Danny Wilson, Robbie Muirhead and Tete Yengi all scored to earn Livi a 4-2 win on the night and 5-3 aggregate victory that clinched their place back in the top tier next season.
And Martindale revealed he had told his players at half-time that if they scored next, they would go on to win the tie.
“It was a very good play-off game, one for the neutral,” Martindale said.
“It was great come full-time for Livingston and Livingston fans.
“It was an interesting game. They went 2-0 up, but it was early enough that I felt we still had a chance, and Lewis Smith comes up with a great individual goal.
“The message at half-time was to get the next goal, because we thought if we did that we would be playing in the Premiership next year.
“That’s easy to say afterwards, but we had massive belief in the players and that’s what happened, so I’m happy for them.”
Ross County manager Don Cowie was understandably disappointed with the outcome as his side’s six-year spell in Scotland’s top flight came to an end.
“When you’re winning the tie by two goals in the first half you should never have not seen it out,” he said.
“Credit to Livingston. They put us under a lot of pressure and they deserved to get back to the Premiership over the two legs, if I’m being honest.
“We didn’t respond well enough after conceding the first goal tonight and looked vulnerable.
“I’m never going to make excuses. I just think momentum is a big thing in football and for whatever reason we lost one or two games and it seemed to set us back.
“We didn’t respond well enough in that period to get back to winning games of football. I think that was evident tonight, from a really commanding position we found a way to lose the tie.”
