JIM Duffy has hailed his side’s impressive first half performance against Stenhousemuir — and also insisted he was never worried they were in danger of a draw despite a nervy second 45.

Defender Lee Kilday fired Morton into a two-goal lead with an unlikely double, but they still found themselves in a precarious position having failed to put the game to bed at 2-0.

Their lead was then halved when Sean Dickson netted with a freak free-kick midway through the second half. And despite playing out the final 22 minutes under the cosh and with rookie 17-year-old sub keeper Jamie McGowan between the sticks, Duffy, pictured, was not concerned they would let their lead slip.

The Ton boss felt his side coped with pressure applied by the Ochilview outfit and claimed the three points they deserved when Stefan McCluskey wrapped up the win with a late third.

He said: “I wouldn’t quite call it squeaky-bum time in the second half, no, because we had three brilliant chances ourselves.

“We always felt we could get a third goal. Without playing great, we made some excellent chances to score and just didn’t manage to convert them.

“Don’t get me wrong, Stenhousemuir really went for it in the second half. They really pressed us and denied us space.

“We moved the ball very well in the first half, but in the second half, they definitely closed us down and proved a threat going forward and at set-pieces.

“We had to defend pretty resolutely. Just before he came off injured, Derek Gaston’s made a fantastic save. I thought we defended well and if you look at it, for all the pressure, Jamie [McGowan] has not had a save to make, and Gats had one.

“All credit to Stenhousemuir for pressing the game and getting into the final third, but when they got into the final third, I thought we defended well. We protected our goal and our goalkeeper.

“If you’re kicking balls off the line and the keeper’s pulling off two or three wonder saves and they’re forcing three or four corners on the bounce, you’re thinking: ‘Oh, wait a minute.’ “But that wasn’t really the case. As they got to the 18-yard box we got ourselves regrouped and defended those areas well.

“And as I say, we had two or three brilliant chances in the second half. Jinky [Jamie McCluskey] had one, Declan [McManus] had one, and Lee [Kilday] had another one.

“Then obviously Stefan [McCluskey] has come on and scored. Sometimes people think if you don’t have a grip of the game, then you’d be better to put on a defensive midfield player to shore it up.

“But we decided we would go with [Stefan’s] pace on the counter-attack. We felt it might be something to get us up the pitch rather than sit and defend the lead in the final 10 minutes.

“Fortunately, that helped, because Stefan had that sharpness. He nicked it, got on his bike, gave the ball to Declan, got a great return ball and scored a terrific goal.

“I thought the three goals were great goals, really good goals. With the first it was a great pass from Stefan [Milojevic], a great touch and a great finish from Lee.

“At his other one, it was a wee ball into Declan, a great reverse pass round the corner for Lee on the overlap and he showed composure to score.

“I felt we were very good going forward today. We had three or four other good chances in the first half.

“Obviously Andy [Barrowman] has hit the bar, there was another one where Lee came in at the far post and Declan was only a fraction away from connecting.

“But you see it all the time at every level of football: 2-0 is a very flimsy scoreline. Once a team gets a goal back everybody gets a bit edgy and the opposition get a head of steam up. That’s what happened. I mean, for 20 minutes there Stenny really penned us in and we couldn’t get a grip of the ball. But we managed to see that through and we were absolutely delighted overall.

“You’re never going to play great for 90 minutes, and, on the balance of play and chances created, I felt we still deserved to win overall.”