MORTON boss David Hopkin says missed chances cost his side victory against Queen of the South in their first game for seven months.

The visitors bounced back twice to draw 2-2 before winning the bonus point in Tuesday's Betfred Cup group stage penalty shootout.

The Ton chief believes that his side should have wrapped the game up by half time as Josh McPake and Aidan Nesbitt spurned a couple of gilt-edged chances.

He told the Tele: “I thought we were great for the first 25 minutes and scored a good goal.

“We should have scored two or three in all honesty before the break.

“I thought Josh McPake should have scored on the brink of half time and Aidan Nesbitt should have maybe squared it to Lewis Strapp just before that. Those chances would have taken us out of sight.

“But the game can turn and sometimes momentum shifts quickly. Allan Johnston changed to a 4-2-4 formation and that put us on the back foot a little bit.

“We also conceded two really poor goals from passes that I never tell my players to play. Maybe that’s a little bit of rustiness and naivety in thinking that we can overplay in the middle of the park.

“We conceded a corner because we gave the ball away cheaply, we didn’t mark up and we conceded from there. For the second goal we tried to play a ball in behind, it’s cut out and they’ve broken quickly to make it 2-2.

“The good thing is that we didn’t let the goals dishearten us. We kept looking to score again right away. Fair play to Queens, they came at us and made us pay for two mistakes.

“That was a shame as it cast a bit of a shadow on our performance.”

The Ton gaffer was particularly pleased with the performance of loanee McPake, who sparkled on his Ton debut, showing pace and a willingness to take men on.

Hopkin told the Tele: “I thought Josh played really well. He offers us something a bit different.

“You keep forgetting that he’s a 19-year-old kid because of the way that he carries himself on the pitch.

“We thought that we’d give him 90 minutes to see how he’d cope with it as it was his first game in over seven months - and he was fantastic.

“Everyone gave me everything that I wanted from them, we’ve just been made to pay for our mistakes.

“We worked hard for our two goals and it was a fantastic cross from Rabin to create the first, as well as great work from Josh to put the ball into the back post for Aidan's.

“I think from what we seen on Tuesday night, Josh will have a big future in the game.”