MORTON manager Jim Duffy said that a half-time change in tactics and tempo made all the difference to his side’s second-half display against Airdrie on Saturday.

The Cappielow club went in at the break trailing 1-0 to the League One basement boys after a less than impressive opening 45 minutes.

Duffy used the interval to modify his midfield shape and ordered his players to up the intensity and take more risks after the restart.

Ton had much the better of the second half and scored twice through Andy Barrowman and Robbie Crawford to turn the game on its head and claim all three points.

Duffy was delighted with what he felt was a ‘considerable improvement’ and credited the way the players applied his half-time adjustments.

He said: “The first half was difficult because Airdrie scored a terrific goal and there’s not much you can do about that.

“It’s a free-kick that has ricocheted off the wall and it’s a great finish. It wasn’t an error or a goal you could pick holes in.

“We were a wee bit too careful after that. Things are a bit edgy and the players were conservative with their passing. We played our passes across the back and everything was a bit too slow.

“It’s difficult because Airdrie are sitting deep, we’ve got the ball at the back and the fans want you to play it forward.

“If you just play it forward and they’ve got two big centre-backs it makes it easy, so you’ve got to move it across the back. I don’t mind that — we just had to do it quicker with more pace on the ball.

“It was important that we raised the tempo of the game, and that’s basically what we asked the players to do that in the second half.

“We needed to get closer to opponents, move the ball quicker and take a risk — you’ve got to take a chance — and fortunately it paid off with a better performance in the second half.

“We tweaked it a little bit at half-time and brought Jamie [McCluskey] on, moved Joe McKee and basically went as a three in the middle and tried to press a bit higher.

“With Robbie [Crawford] we asked him to come in the pitch a bit. He was too wide. We didn’t ask him to do that but I think he just drifted out there naturally.

“The idea was for him to come in the pitch and affect the game a bit more, and I was delighted for him to score the winner.

“Even though I didn’t think the first half was terrible, it was a considerably better second half for us. We definitely had more attacking threat.

“Overall, it was a difficult game, which we knew it would be. We just had to dig in and see through the sticky spells and hope we had enough in the tank to get the victory. Fortunately we did.”