After a goalless first half, the Diamonds ruthlessly punished mistakes by Lee Kilday and Ross Forbes to score twice in the space of 10 minutes.

Sub Jamie McCluskey pulled one back in stoppage time but it was too late to salvage anything from the match as Gary Bollan’s men held on to stretch their unbeaten run to nine matches.

Duffy was relatively content with how his team had performed in the first half but says they handed the match to their opponents after the break.

He told the Tele: “I’m deflated and frustrated with the result today, probably more so because I couldn’t see it coming at half-time.

“I thought we played well in the first half, we were on the front foot, and pretty much matched Airdrie in all departments. The players were up for the challenge and up for the test.

“We put a lot of balls in and about the box but didn’t quite get a clear cut chance. It didn’t really fall for us in the box, and in tight games that can be the difference.

“Obviously the first goal is a basic error, an individual error. I’m certainly not going to cane Lee Kilday for it.

“He made a mistake and Airdrie get a lift from that. They showed they are a good side.

“I thought Ross Forbes was probably our best player today, but he was short with a header and they capitalised.

“They took advantage of errors and it knocked the stuffing out of us. I was disappointed with the response as we should have really rolled the sleeves up and got going again quickly.

“The second half definitely belonged to Airdrie up until maybe the last 15 minutes when we pushed on.

“After that we had a lot of the ball but we couldn’t quite create. We scored a goal but it was a wee bit too late. The players didn’t quit or chuck the towel in, it was just a case of Airdrie making it very difficult for us.

“It’s difficult enough when the opposition do their own jobs without us handing the initiative to Airdrie today.” The Ton boss made four personnel changes to the side that lost to Forfar and deployed Thomas O’Ware and Mark Russell in different starting positions.

He explained: “The changes were a wee bit to do with last week and also to do with the fact that it’s a big pitch here, a 3G pitch, so I felt we needed a bit of width.

“We played Stefan McCluskey and Mark Russell and I felt they did well. Mark made some great runs in the first half. I also brought Michael Miller in.

“I just felt with Ross Forbes it would give us a bit of balance and I felt he did well.

“I brought Ricki Lamie in at left-back to give us a bit of physicality because Bryan Gilfillan and Marc Fitzpatrick are strong boys.” A section of the away support expressed displeasure with the fact the Ton boss waited until 76 minutes to make a double change.

Their frustration was intensified when he held off making the switch with Ross Caldwell and Jamie McCluskey stripped on the sidelines.

But Duffy said: “They were only there a couple of minutes. It was about two minutes and only because Mark Russell was running back and had half a challenge and the boy went down.

“I was tempted to take him off because he could have got sent off, and I delayed it because he was on our side of the pitch and I just wanted to have a wee think because I didn’t want to take Mark off.

“So it was only a wee delay to make sure Mark just calmed down and I got a wee word to him to settle down because I had a wee concern he might have picked up another yellow card. I understand fans get frustrated and they want you to make substitutions and make them earlier. But at the end of the day you’ve got to have the balance of a team. You can’t just have five forwards and hope for the best.

“You’ve got to have width and midfielders to get on the ball. Sometimes you can throw a gamble at it when you’re 1-0 down, but we were 2-0 down so you’ve just got to try and get the best of it.”