MORTON gaffer Gus MacPherson has called for cool heads in the final third after seeing his side's survival hopes suffer a blow against Raith Rovers.

Ton didn’t register a shot on target until the 87th minute at Stark's Park and the manager believes a lack of composure was to blame for the lack of chances created up front.

While MacPherson was pleased with his team's workrate and defending, he was disappointed they conceded from a set piece after Jamie Gullan fired home the winner for Raith following a corner with 10 minutes remaining.

He told the Tele: “I’m frustrated because we’ve lost out to a set piece.

“We were well organised, we worked hard and limited Raith Rovers to some crosses into the box, but over the piece we dealt with them pretty well.

“I think if we had a little bit more composure in the final third then we could’ve created better chances ourselves.

“It could’ve been a totally different game if we’d taken our chance early on but that’s what we’re encouraging our wing-backs to do, to get forward and get into these opportunities.

“We want to be positive about how we’re trying to play.

“We’ve got a good foundation with the back three and those wing-backs need to be going up in support, but it gives us plenty to work on going ahead into the final handful of games now.

“When you’ve got the energy and the enthusiasm that this group has, then you just move forward from it.

“You can be frustrated all you want and be disappointed to lose the game but considering the effort we put in we’ve got to take some positives from that.

“That’s just the fine lines at this level.

“Set pieces are crucial and we really need our concentration levels to be there for them.

“It’s not even the first ball, we’ve reacted to try and win the header at the front post, it’s the second ball.

“Jamie Gullan has reacted to it and we’ve not but because it was from a set piece it was extremely frustrating.”

Despite Arbroath sitting just three points behind Ton in the relegation play-off spot, MacPherson says that his players should only concentrate on themselves as they continue to battle for Championship survival.

He said: “We can't afford to get caught up in looking at the table, we can only focus on ourselves, our preparation and our recovery.

“It's that old cliché again, we just need to take each game as it comes along."

The Morton manager hopes that by sending James Wallace and Rabin Omar out on loan, they can get some much-needed minutes after limited action this season.

He added: “James and Rabin probably haven’t played as much as they’d have liked over the course of the season and to be fair to them they’ve trained really hard.

“We thought it would only be fair on them to let them go out and get some more minutes and precious game time out at Dumbarton, so hopefully they can go out and enjoy it.”