Published: Monday, 19th January, 2009 12:30pm

Deserved Dens draw for Ton

DUNDEE 0 MORTON 0

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CHALLENGE TIME: Brian Wake in action at Dens Park.
Pic by: David Bell

MORTON boss Davie Irons pointed to Dundee goalkeeper Rab Douglas"s man of the match award as evidence of his own side"s worth at Dens Park on Saturday.

Asked if he felt his team deserved to be ahead at half-time he replied: 'Definitely. Rab Douglas has made three unbelievable stops.

'Dundee came into it in the second half and Colin McMenamin has had an opportunity but I think that, over the piece, we have had the better chances.

'I spoke to the boys before the game and said that this is the sort of place you have to come to take something from. To go away with a point we are reasonably happy.

'I couldn"t see how the ball stayed out [of the Dundee goal] in the first half. Douglas has made a great save from Ryan McGuffie, it"s fallen to Brian Wake and he saved that one. After that, to coin a phrase from one of the Morton directors, it was a bit of a stramash.

'How it stayed out I don"t know. Then again, in the second half, he has made a great save from Peter Weatherson.

'You hear then that he has been announced man of the match and that tells you how well he has played. Full credit to Rab, but it"s a pity he had to do it today.'

Dundee boss Jocky Scott was frankly honest when he admitted his side got no more than they deserved.

He said: 'We didn"t handle the game properly. We didn"t get the ball down and pass it, and we didn"t pass it quickly enough.

'We allowed them to muscle us out of things, and really we created very few chances. The end of the story is that we got what we deserved, the maximum of a point. We started well in the first five minutes and got good crosses in the box.

'After that we stopped until about the last five minutes of the first half when we had another couple of crosses from the left hand side, but other than that we never really threatened their goal.

'I can"t remember many direct shots at goal to be honest.'

Of the close range opportunity missed by Dens striker Colin McMenamin, Scott said: 'That"s a chance. It came from one of the only direct shots we had at goal when the keeper parried for Colin to miss the target with. It was just a bad execution from him. I wouldn"t expect him to have any excuses.

'At the end of the day it was very disappointing. The players are all very disappointed at the level of performance.

'The only real positive that has come out of the game for us is a clean sheet again.'