MORTON manager Ray McKinnon insists he has ‘absolutely no regrets’ about fielding an entirely different starting 11 in their 2-1 loss to Dumbarton.

The Ton boss opted to change his entire team from the 2-0 win over Alloa on Saturday.

It is the second consecutive year the Ton have exited the Irn-Bru Cup in the first round, but the manager says it was more important to give players game time.

He told the Tele: “It was great for the likes of Robert Thomson and Kerr Waddell to get game time, and these kids have to play in games like these.

“This is where they learn and after 30 minutes they picked the game up.

“We had a good chat to them at the break and what they needed to do in the second half, and I thought they were relentless in the second half, it was good to watch and it was exciting.

“Almost everyone needed the game tonight, and it’s served a really good purpose for us and I’m pleased with the performance.

“We need to look at the bigger picture, the bigger picture for us is that we want to have a good season.

“We had to get people games tonight, we wanted to blood young players, I needed to see them and it was really good to finish the game tonight, so I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever.”

The hosts opened the scoring via Michael Paton, before Iain Russell doubled the home side’s advantage after 26 minutes.

The young Morton side, which had an average age of just 22, struggled to get a foothold in the game in the opening 30 minutes.

But they grew into the game as it went on, and Gary Oliver netted his first goal of the season on 37 minutes.

Ross MacLean was introduced late on, and had two free-kicks which were expertly saved by goalkeeper Grant Adam.

And McKinnon insists his side were unlucky to lose the tie.

He added: “Overall in the game after making all the changes from the weekend, introducing lots of young kids, I’m absolutely delighted.

“After 30 minutes I thought we were excellent, and the longer the game went on, we could have won the game and we created lots of young chances.

“Even though Ross MacLean’s 21 and Kerr is young, it’s probably one of the youngest teams ever in Morton’s history.

“I thought they were excellent in the second half, we just couldn’t get the ball into the net.

“We wanted to win the game, it would have been nice to have done that, and we could have done it on penalties if we’d taken our chances, but we’ve got to be really happy with the performance.

“No disrespect to Dumbarton but it was one-way traffic against a very experienced team, and one that’s just come down from the Championship still with Championship players.”