MORTON boss David Hopkin praised his rock solid back four as they remained firm to seal an opening day victory over Alloa Athletic.

Cameron Salkeld put the home side in front with 10 minutes played and Hopkin was delighted with the way his side carried out their duties.

He commended the efforts of his back four for dealing with the Alloa onslaught for the last 15 minutes following the sending off of key man Josh McPake.

He told the Tele: “I’m delighted that we’ve managed to get up and running because we knew that it was going to be a tough start to the season for us.

“We had a game plan, because if we let Alloa play then everybody knows how good that they can be.

“I thought that we managed the game brilliantly the whole way through.

“I thought Brian McLean was excellent, along with Markus Fjortoft and Robbie Muirhead, who filled in at left-back.

“Robbie was brilliant, he played left-back during the week against Queen's Park and I was delighted with the way that he played, and he deserves to stay in the team.

“We had Markus playing at right-back as well, so we decided to go with a bit of strength and height, and it paid dividends.

“In the second half we had to sit a bit deeper and then by going down to 10 men it makes it even harder for both sides.

“We held out, got a clean sheet and scored a great goal on the counter-attack.

“We could’ve scored more in the set plays but it’s early doors.

“It was a fantastic three points for us. We should’ve been two or three up by half-time with the game sewn up.

“I think in the first 15 to 20 minutes, we’ve got to start taking those chances.

“We had two free headers early in the second half that we should’ve been scoring, but I’m just delighted that we managed to kick off with three points.”

Hopkin admitted that he feared a repeat of last season’s late collapse in the 4-4 draw - but he was relieved as his side maintained their shape to frustrate their opponents on Saturday.

He said: “It did get a bit too close for comfort at the end there and the exact same thing happened towards the back end of last season.

"Two late goals in the last five minutes from crosses into the box punished us on that occasion.

“It just shows you how well we held our shape because they had to change their game plan.

“We did start to sit that bit deeper and the crosses started to come in, causing a wee bit of mayhem, but all in all I’m delighted with the clean sheet and that everybody played so well.

“It’s three points, that’s the main thing and it’s what I asked the players for, so I’m delighted that they’ve delivered.”