Stevie May admits Livingston need a major improvement against Queen’s Park if they are to stay in the Championship title race.

The Lions head to Hampden on Saturday, having thrown away a chance to close the gap on leaders Falkirk to three points last weekend.

Falkirk being held 3-3 at Dunfermline on Friday night left Livingston heading to Kirkcaldy knowing a win over Raith could be crucial.

But a lacklustre first half saw the hosts take a 2-0 interval lead through goals from Dylan Easton and Aidan Connolly, and though May netted a 65th-minute penalty, it was too little, too late.

That left the gap between second-top Livingston and Falkirk at six points, with both having played 19 games.

May knows they will need to be better against the Spiders, or fall further behind.

“Losing to Raith is not ideal for us, but it’s about regrouping now, putting that behind us and looking forward to doing better next week.

“There are a lot of games left, and there’s plenty of football to be played.”

On-loan St Johnstone striker May netted his eighth goal of the season from the spot, but admitted they deserved to return from Kirkcaldy empty-handed.

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May said: “We just gave ourselves too much to do. We didn’t start like we wanted to, and we knew it wasn’t good enough.

“Obviously we had a much better second half, but two goals behind is too much for us to come back from.

“We had plenty of time after my penalty and we had plenty of pressure and stuff, but the difference in first and second half is too big – it shouldn’t be.

“We’ve got to start better, and everyone knows that.”

May says watching Falkirk in a rare slip-up makes their result worse, but they have to put it behind them.

“You see that and you think it gives us a little bit of a chance, without looking too much at what they’re doing,” said the 32-year-old.

“We’ve just got to do better, ourselves.

“Last week we were probably a bit unfortunate [to lose against Ayr United]. We never really gave up much and we had chances as well.

“But to lose against Raith , I think it’s probably fair.

“After the way the first half was, we probably deserved to lose the game.”