JIM Duffy was disappointed with his players after Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Queen of the South at Cappielow – and admitted the visitors deserved the points.

Stephen Dobbie and Callum Fordyce turned the game on its head after Gary Harkins had opened the scoring for Ton.

Duffy was at a loss for words as to why his side seemed to surrender their domination after going ahead early in the match.

But the manager reckons Gary Naysmith’s side handled the basics better than his troops and that was a key element of the game.

He said: “The first 20 minutes I thought we started well but we gradually seemed to fall out the game and I don’t know why. We seemed to get deeper and allow Queens to get back involved in it in terms of control.

“We started brightly and we got the penalty which really should have given us a platform to go and take the game by the scruff of the neck.

“We had a couple of really good chances that we didn’t capitalise on and then with the goal coming just before and after half-time, these are crucial moments in football.

“Every goal you concede in football is disappointing but the moments in which we did were particularly galling. It’s lapses in concentration which is crucial.

“Queens then defended their goal very well and other than a few good crosses from young Tiff [Scott Tiffoney], we didn’t threaten too much. 

“Sometimes after a game you’re thinking that you deserve a bit more. But I don’t think we did. It wasn’t a classic football match but Queens did the simple things better and more effectively than we did.”

Morton were without several key players including stand-in skipper Thomas O’Ware, Jai Quitongo and Michael Tidser in the engine room. But Duffy refused to use the injuries as a scapegoat for the poor performance, instead deciding to criticise his side’s concentration for the second goal.

He added: “We’ve got players injured like Michael Tidser, Thomas, Jai, Connor McManus and Lee Kilday is long-term. 

“But I’m not going to make excuses for that because I don’t think the goals were down to those types of players. The first goal is a lump up the pitch and Dobbie finds space and the second one is a long throw.

“But we’ve got centre in the second half and we didn’t get into their half. It was a ricocheted ball and then it was a second phase, then a long throw. Gats [Derek Gaston] saves the first one and there’s still the second one. There were so many elements that were poor from our point of view.”