MORTON looked no closer to finding a cure for their acute case of travel sickness as they suffered a lame 3-1 loss at Brechin City on Saturday.

League One is known as the seaside league, with teams forced to journey to Scottish football’s coastal outposts and farthest flung reaches.

Despite having a 100 per cent home record, the Ton are struggling with life on the road and slipped to their fourth away defeat in five matches with this loss at Glebe Park.

Unlike last week’s narrow 2-1 reverse against Stenhousemuir, the Cappielow club can have no complaints about the outcome in Angus.

Jim Duffy’s side piled on the pressure in the final 40 minutes at Ochilview and saw four strong penalty appeals rejected by referee Alan Muir.

That improvement, however, only materialised after what defender Lee Kilday later described as a brutal first-half performance.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s trip to Brechin, the likes of Kilday, Thomas O’Ware, Jamie McCluskey,and manager Duffy had all identified the need to turn up for the full 90 minutes.

There was a particular focus on setting out their stall — and they came within the width of the crossbar of making the ideal start.

In a sight that is becoming increasingly familiar to Morton fans, Joe McKee clipped over a corner which O’Ware met with a towering downwards header on eight minutes.

But the outcome was concurrent with the recent luck he has had at set-pieces, with the ball bouncing up off the turf and against the underside of the crossbar.

If that was cruel, the next incident was sadistic. The travelling support had been left seething after watching their side twice refused penalties for handball at Stenny.

Yet, in the 11th minute on Saturday, whistler Barry Cook pointed straight to the spot after adjudging Sean Crighton to have blocked a Bobby Barr cross with his arm.

The Ton skipper slid in to stop the former Livi winger from firing a cross into the box from the bye-line.

From the press bench in the stand, he did appear to turn it behind with a stray hand, but Crighton claimed that the ball had struck his chest.

Cook, though, was in no doubt, and former Morton youth player Alan Trouten, a spot-kick specialist, converted with a calm penalty placed into the bottom-right corner.

Ton were at sixes and sevens in the build up to the handball incident, and that defensive uncertainty continued over the course of the match.

As they had with Stenhousmuir striker Martin Grehan, centre-halves O’Ware and Crighton were struggling to contend with Robert Thomson’s physicality.

And, much like attacking midfielder Sean Dickson had last weekend, Aberdeen loanee Jamie Masson was causing problems by dropping in and exploiting space between the lines.

After surviving a handful of scares by the skins of their teeth, the visitors steadied the ship and laid siege to Graeme Smith’s goal for a sustained 10-minute spell.

Declan McManus and Robbie Crawford fired over with successive shots from distance around the 20-minute mark. Although they were off target, the efforts seemed to stir Ton into life.

Only a smart Smith parry prevented Andy Barrowman from finding the net with a scooped volley struck from seven yards after Jamie McCluskey had found him with a floated cross.

Former Ton right-back Jamie McCormack was then made to look foolish when his attempt to skin McManus down by the corner flag backfired.

McManus seized on the slip, burrowed in on goal and fired in a low cross that home defender Darren McCormack came perilously close to turning through his own net.

McKee was at the centre of a lot of Ton’s best work at this stage and put McManus clear down the inside-left channel by intelligently evading a challenge and threading a pass through a defender’s legs.

McManus took a touch to control and attempted to slot past Smith.

The former Motherwell and Hibs goalkeeper produced another important block to keep Duffy’s men out.

The Ton boss was forced into a reshuffle when right-back Kilday was forced off as the result of an ankle injury caused by Colin Hamilton’s late tackle.

Stefan Milojevic was sent on and took up a place in the centre of defence while O’Ware moved out to right-back.

But within five minutes of joining the action, the Serbian centre-half gifted Brechin a free-kick in a dangerous area with a clumsy challenge.

Positioned 25 yards out to right of centre, Masson bent the ball in behind towards the far post, and it was from there that Morton failed to either defend adequately or match their opponents’ desire.

Left-back Hamilton was allowed to get in around the back and fire back across the face of goal from the bye-line for the unchecked Thomson to force home on the line.

It was an atrocious goal to concede and rocked the visitors.

They were all at sea for the remaining 12 minutes and fortunate to get in at half-time without conceding again.

Brechin were served a blow in this period, though, when Greenock-born skipper Craig Molloy was forced off with a medial ligament injury. Gary Fusco took his place in midfield.

Nevertheless, by the time the half-time whistle came the visitors would have been happy just to get in and use the 15 minutes to regroup.

The interval seemed to serve them well as they came back out and took the game to Brechin upon the restart.

On 49 minutes, McKee pulled back for McManus who took a touch 15 yards out and rifled off a low drive which span up off Smith and looked set to drop into the net until Paul McLean headed off the line.

The ball was eventually scrambled behind for a corner which McKee took and, almost as a matter of routine, picked out set-piece dangerman O’Ware.

In keeping with the defender’s aforementioned fortunes, his goal-bound downwards header was hacked off the line by McCormack positioned on the left-hand post.

It was a strange second half for the 21-year-old as he asked questions of Brechin as a highly effective attacking full-back while simultaneously struggling to contain flying left winger Barr defensively.

Three minutes after going so close at one end, he was beaten all ends up at the other and could only watch as the Barr pushed the ball on to Masson.

The Brechin No10 shifted the ball out from his body and clipped the outside of the post with a curling effort that left Nicolas Caraux rooted to the spot.

The Frenchman, selected ahead of Derek Gaston, was left with no chance when Brechin extended their lead by cleaving Morton open with a lightning counter-attack.

McKee lost possession in midfield and the hosts took full advantage, with Barr surging clear down the inside-left and slipping a diagonal pass into Kyle McAusland’s path.

And Rangers loanee McAusland marked his Glebe Park debut by slotting a firm, side-footed effort past the advancing Ton No1.

Brechin kept up the pressure and only a stunning one-handed Caraux save from a Thomson header and an offside flag to rule out a Trouten strike prevented them from making it four.

However, it was the Greenock men who would find the net next to throw themselves a lifeline with 22 minutes left to play.

The energetic Crawford took possession on the left, cut back onto his right foot and floated over a deep cross which O’Ware met with a cushioned volleyed to score via the crossbar.

Ton spent the next 15 minutes knocking on the door. They huffed and puffed without ever really threatening to blow it down.

O’Ware fired a shot wide after turning Hamilton inside out and then picked out Barrowman with a precise cross, but the hitman’s downwards header was clawed away by Smith.

Crawford and McKee then took it in turns to go for goal, with Crawford flashing two firm efforts wide while McKee’s fizzing drive was beaten out by Smith with a nervy, two-handed punch.

Gourockian Crawford then placed tamely at Smith from the edge of the box after McManus had fought to get on the end of McKee’s lofted pass over the top and subsequently teed him up.

The visitors failed to make their chances count, though, and were fortunate not to be hit on the counter in the closing stages.

Both Trouten and McAusland crashed efforts against the crossbar as Ray McKinnon’s men ripped the defensively suspect visitors apart on the break.

Brechin were forced to settle for three goals – but they had long since secured the three points that would take them above Ton into the play-off places.

The Cappielow club now host Stirling Albion and Ayr United on successive weekends before travelling to Dunfermline on 25 October.

Six points might not be a panacea for their away-day affliction, but they would go a long way to banishing recent blues before that important trip to East End Park.