JIM DUFFY was left cursing the performance of Jamie Langfield on Friday night after the veteran keeper’s outstanding show kept his Morton side at bay.

Duffy was especially vexed as it was him that gave the St Mirren stopper his first professional contract at Dundee in the mid-Nineties.

“Jamie Langfield was in inspired form,” Duffy said.

“He had a couple of unbelievable saves.

“He’s a bugger, I signed him as a 16-year-old so I think he owes me one now!

“But he was fantastic.

“Over the balance of play I was disappointed not to win though.”

Duffy also backed his St Mirren counterpart Ian Murray, who questioned referee Greg Aitken’s decision to send off defender Luke Conlan.

He was disappointed though that his side failed to make the most of their numerical advantage, creating fewer chances than they had when it was 11v11.

“It’s a derby, so what do you expect? You expect your players to compete,” he said.

“I didn’t think it was a red card, I thought it was a fraction out and because it was at pace it’s probably looked a bit worse than it was.

“They’ve got mikes and they’ve got a fourth official, so they could be talking to each other.

“The rules are very complicated now though, and on the day the referee has made the call.

“After that I didn’t think we created enough, we played down the throats of St Mirren too often.

“On the two or three occasions when we did get it wide we did create chances, but we didn’t do that often enough.

“We’re decimated with injuries and again we had a few during the game, so from that point of view we should probably be satisfied with a point in the end.”

St Mirren boss Murray was frustrated at both the red card decision and the chalking off of an early Stevie Thompson header for an apparent foul on Derek Gaston.

“It doesn’t look like a red card to me,” Murray said.

“We’ll need to go and look at it properly and analyse it.

“There’s no malice in the tackle. We’re disappointed.

“I thought the referee was very, very quick to brandish his red card.

“It’s very hard for refs, I get that, but what I can’t get is that we can’t even speak to them now.

“We don’t get a lot of explanation so it’s going to be the same old, same old.

“We’ll phone up on Monday morning and we’ll probably get told there’s some technicality and we can’t appeal it and it’s not going to happen, but we’ll try our best.

“Players and officials have to be ready,” Murray added about Thompson’s disallowed goal.

“It’s the start of the derby, and if our players are not ready for the game we give them a hard time.

“I felt that it was a definite goal, clear as day, no foul at all.

“He has blown early, and mistakes happen, but it’s disappointing.

“At the moment we’re not getting a lot of luck. There have been a few strange decisions against us, and it’s now starting to get a wee bit serious for us because we’re missing out on a lot of points because of it.”