MORTON manager Jim Duffy was pleased with his side’s character despite going out of the Petrofac Training Cup at the first hurdle with a 3-2 home defeat to Dumbarton.

A double from Grant Gallacher and a further strike from Garry Fleming looked to have the Sons out of sight before a late Morton rally through goals from Lee Kilday and a Peter McDonald penalty ultimately proved too little to force extra-time.

“To be honest, I wasn’t too unhappy at the level of performance,” Duffy said.

“Over the course of ninety minutes, Dumbarton were definitely better. They were very clinical and they took their chances well, so I can’t complain about the overall result.

“In general play, though, I thought we did pretty well, and also with the injury problems and suspensions we have, as well as the injuries we picked up during the game, we had a very young side out, so ultimately it was about gaining experience. From that perspective, I thought the boys acquitted themselves well.

“Attitude will be vital going into the season ahead in the Championship, because we’re going to be up against teams who have stronger squads and bigger resources than us.

"There will be games where we don’t dominate as much as we did in League One, so it’s important to keep a positive attitude and keep that spirit, and the players certainly did that.

“It was a terrific fightback and we nearly turned it around, so there were a lot of things that I was pleased about.

“We lost some sloppy goals and we need to improve that aspect of our game, but in general I thought we played pretty well, and we’ll be a bit stronger this week with having a couple of players back from suspension, and one or two others available.”

Duffy is hoping to get back to winning ways on Saturday at home to Elgin City in the League Cup in order to build momentum for the Ladbrokes Championship campaign.

He added: “It’s important we get back to winning because it gives a bit of optimism to supporters and any loss breeds a little bit of negativity.

"If we can get a result on Saturday it will be a good platform going into the league.”