REGHAN Tumilty has branded Morton’s ‘ill-disciplined’ performance in their heavy defeat to Dunfermline Athletic as ‘unacceptable’.

The Ton were shellshocked as the Pars poured forward with attack after attack, opening the scoring after just three minutes — the earliest the Cappielow outfit have conceded this season.

Allan Johnston’s side got another just before the break via Faissal El Bakhtaoui’s penalty, before James Craigen rounded off the scoring to make it a miserable day in Fife for the Greenock team.

Only Partick Thistle have a worse defensive record this season than Jonatan Johansson’s side, shipping 24 goals in 15 games, with 13 of those goals coming in just three matches.

It was an error-strewn display at the weekend, and the defender admitted it was far from satisfactory display.

He told the Tele: “It’s really disappointing, especially after the few games that we’ve been so good in to be so ill-disciplined was unacceptable.

“They definitely could have been more than 1-0 up in the first few minutes. We emphasised the importance of starting well and the gaffer said it’s all about the start in this game.

“We knew what our jobs were and what we were going to do, so to go and start like that was just unacceptable.”

Morton have not been able to go on a good run this season, with three unbeaten under Ray McKinnon at the beginning of the season being their longest stint without a loss.

Results have gone up and down throughout the season, with several other teams in the Championship suffering from the same inconsistency.

The right-back is unsure why it struck Morton again.

Tumilty said the criticism should firmly lay with the players and refused to blame the midweek tie against Peterhead or the manager for the loss.

He said: “I’m not sure why it’s happened, we prepare the same for every game.

“It’s up to us and the manager to go back and look at it.

“It [the Peterhead midweek tie] shouldn’t affect anyone, there shouldn’t be any excuses for a performance like that. “We’ve prepared well and we did all we needed to do and to start like that is just really poor.

“We’ve spoken about needing a base, we need a few good games and go on a run in this league it’s really good, you can see that with teams like Ayr.

“But it’s really tough at the moment and we really need to find that consistency as quick as possible.”

The 21-year-old joined Morton in the summer from Ross County after going out on loan with Falkirk.

His appearance on Saturday against the Pars was his 22nd in a Ton shirt, matching his total number of appearances for the whole of last season. While the defender is thrilled to get more game time with Morton, he hopes they can improve their results soon.

He said: “I’m enjoying it and I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks, grinding out away draws and winning and going through in the cup.

“But being a part of this on Saturday was not fun and we need to be a lot better than that.”