JIM Duffy admits that Saturday’s win over Queen of the South wasn’t one for the purists — but he believes Morton were good value for the three points against the Doonhamers.

Ross Forbes’s 12th goal of the season nicked the win in a fairly evenly contested game, but Duffy insists Ton just shaded the clash and deserved the victory.

He said: “I think we deserved to win. 

“The first half was a bit scrappy and we had a couple of blocks, but there wasn’t much goalmouth action for either side, to be honest.

“We defended really well, the two centre halves were outstanding and Andy Murdoch in front of them again was man of the match.

"He’s been like that since he’s came to the club, absolutely terrific for us.

“In the second half we calmed it down a bit and started passing the ball a bit better and changed the shape a bit. We put Nizzy [Aidan Nesbitt] through the middle and I think that generally gave us a little bit more of a threat up top.

“Overall, Lee Robinson’s had two or three fantastic saves, we’ve scored an outstanding goal from Ross again and I think over the course of the 90 minutes we deserved to win.”

Duffy also praised his returning players Michael Doyle and Jamie Lindsay for putting in an excellent shift, singling out Doyle for his versatile performance.

He said: “I thought Michael Doyle, when he went to right-back had an outstanding match. We put him at left-back to deal with young [Dom] Thomas, who is an outstanding player, and he did that very well.

“But when he went to right-back you could see him driving forward and that gave us a bit of energy, which we lacked in the first half.

“When you’ve been out injured like [Doyle or Jamie Lindsay], sometimes it does take you a wee bit of time to get the legs going, and we never played last week either.

"But over the course of 90 minutes we got stronger as a team. In the last stage of the match we looked the side most likely to threaten the goal.

“It wasn’t a classic football match, but I’m delighted with the three points.”