STEVIE Aitken admits Dumbarton felt ‘a bit hard done by’ after their 2-1 defeat to Morton at the weekend, after a dubious penalty decision allowed Michael Tidser to bag the winner from the spot.

Sons captain Darren Barr brought down Aidan Nesbitt inside the box after 66 minutes, but Aitken is adamant the ex-Falkirk defender didn’t deliberately foul his man - because he didn’t know where the winger was at the time.

He said: “I think we feel a bit hard done by. The penalty decision is the one we’ll all talk about. If it was for me, I would’ve taken it, of course I would have.

"But Darren Barr hasn’t got a clue where the boy Nesbitt is. It’s harsh, but sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t.

“I just went to the referee after the match and told him I thought it was a poor decision. He’s said there’s a connection and that he thought Darren fouled him, but Darren wasn’t watching the player - so how could he foul him?

“It made it more difficult, but credit to the boys because we could’ve got back into it with that chance at the end. We could’ve got a draw out of it but I think the damage is done in the first 25 minutes.”

He added: “We didn’t start the game right, we were disappointed and Morton were on the front foot.

“But credit to the players again, we came storming back into it and had two great chances in the first half through Robert Thomson and Josh Todd. We need to take one of those chances.

“Second half we knew we had to get back into the game so we were committing more men forward.