David Gray stressed that there is “still a lot of football to be played” after Josh Mulligan’s late strike gave Hibernian a lifeline in their 2-1 Conference League defeat by Legia Warsaw at Easter Road..
The visitors started the first leg in positive fashion but visiting striker Jean-Pierre Nsame opened the scoring from the spot in the 34th minute and in the third minute of added time before the break, Pawell Wszolek volleyed in a second.
Legia had a third goal ruled out for offside in the second half but Hibs kept battling away and got their rewards in the 87th minute with Mulligan’s strike, which put a better complexion on the tie ahead of the return game in Poland next Thursday night.
Boss Gray said: “If you just look at it as a 90-minute game, you’ve lost a game, but I think this is a very different format.
“I think the fact it’s now 2-1, it’s a huge goal in the game.
“I think the players deserved it for what they put into it.
“Especially the way we started the game, I thought we were excellent, really aggressive, really brave, which is something that I challenged the players, to go and try and be on the front foot, try and be really aggressive against a really good side.
“We knew that that they were a top team, they got to the quarter-finals in the competition for a reason last season but we need to take the confidence from the fact that we went toe-to-toe.
“I thought for a large period we were well in the game and had really good chances within it, we need to be better in many situations, and then clearly there are mistakes within it as well.
“Any coach will say the same, we need to improve as well in certain areas and you always look to do that.
“But one thing I would say is there is a lot of football still to be played in this tie.
“Belief, momentum, that’s key words.
“The players need to believe and go ahead and do it, because the demonstrated they can do it for large periods of tonight, and I think the fact that we get that goal at that time shows that there’s still a lot of football still to play.”
Legia Warsaw boss Edward Iordanescu said: “I’m a little bit frustrated because at the end of the day we were 2-0 up and we could have made 3-0, we had the chances and instead of making three it finished 2-1 and now we have to fight again at home for sure.”
