RELIEVED Morton manager Jim Duffy admitted his side got out of jail when a blizzard forced referee Alan Muir to abandon Saturday’s match at Alloa after 68 minutes.

Ton were trailing 1-0 to the Championship basement boys after Michael Duffy had given his side a first-half lead at the Indodrill Stadium when the whistler called a halt to proceedings.

The incessant snowfall was causing both a danger to the players and visibility issues in relation to the pitch markings and the yellow ball, and the decision to cancel the game was made.

Duffy agreed that the game could not continue but was displeased with his team’s display and insisted the whiteout had let them off the hook.

He told the Tele: “It’s a difficult decision for the referee because Alloa are winning the match – and they deserved to be winning in the match, there’s no doubt about that.

“I think if we had scored that one that [Scott] Gallacher made a good save [from Alex Samuel], he might have just called it time then because it’s much easier if there’s parity.

“Obviously if the rules are that if they can’t see the lines … and if you cleared the lines they were just going to get covered again – so it was a very, very difficult decision for the referee.

“From my point of view, we have got the benefit today. There’s no doubt about that, because we were losing the match and I felt Alloa were the better side.

“I wasn’t happy with our performance, not at all. We didn’t play well and weren’t playing well. Too many of us were off the pace. In the first half, we huffed and puffed but there’s wasn’t much in it.

“Gats [Derek Gaston] had a couple of great saves from shots and we only really had one chance when Tam O’Ware had a header and that was about it really.

“Alloa were making it very difficult for us. They were denying us any room whatsoever and we found it difficult to get a foothold in the game.

“If I was in Jack Ross’s boots I’d be absolutely gutted — he will be a lot more disappointed than I am — because his team were in control of the match.

“So I was disappointed in our performance, and when it’s the case you’re not playing particularly well and don’t look like getting a break, we have to accept we got a get out of jail card today.”

Duffy did not accept that his team were definitely out of the match with around 27 minutes still to play, and revealed he was in the process of making an experimental substitution to try and tailor his tactics to the worsening conditions.

He added: “I wouldn’t have written us off, but we would have had to make a significant improvement in the last half hour to take anything from the game. I was making a substitution just when the decision was made because I felt that we were getting down the right a lot of times but our final ball was poor.

“So, I thought Ricki [Lamie] might give us a bit of presence on set-pieces.

"It was so tight in midfield and there wasn’t a lot of space, so I thought it was a case of getting the ball in the box more.

"With conditions deteriorating, I was going to put Tam O’Ware further up the pitch and hope to see if we could get balls into the box, because we weren’t playing well enough to play through.”

Ton will return to Clackmannshire for the rescheduled match and Duffy expects no less than another testing 90 minutes against the Wasps next time around.

He concluded: “We’ve got to come back here again - we haven’t even spoken about a date yet - and I’m sure Alloa will be just as determined as they were today.