MORTON gaffer Gus MacPherson says he'll take points over performances after admitting his side were lucky to beat Hamilton Accies.

The Ton manager believes his team have played better already this campaign, but he says that the way his group pulled together to cling onto the win showed a strong team spirit.

MacPherson is adamant that Cameron Blues, who set up Gozie Ugwu's first-half winner, shouldn't have been sent off for bringing down David Templeton - but says is proud of his players for holding onto the victory.

He told the Tele: “I’m delighted with the result but but I won’t kid anyone on, it was fortuitous.

“We’ve been looking to try and build momentum and we can gain that with that kind of performance.

“I think it was Gordon Strachan who said that you can go all your golf days, go-karting or paintballing to try and build team spirit – but the only way to successfully do that is to win games and it doesn’t matter how you do it.

“Especially away from home against good opposition, if you can get it over the line and get three points it’s brilliant for the group so early on in the season.

“Jack Hamilton has pulled off an outstanding save in the first half to keep them out and Accies will be sitting scratching their head as to how they’ve not come away from the game with a win or at least a draw – but we’ll take it."

On Blues' sending off, MacPherson said: “The disappointing thing is that there were bookings that were questionable and we now cannot appeal the sending off because it was a second booking, but we’ll just have to take it on the chin going forward.

“It does make it easier because we got the three points but we know we can offer a lot more than we did.

“The experienced guys are the ones who I usually pinpoint. They help the younger ones to do their jobs and there’s a good balance about the group just now.

“Even when we get the new players in, which we will, hopefully it adds another balance to that as well.”

The Ton boss has backed hitman Ugwu to be a handful going forward after opening his account for the Greenock club.

MacPherson added: “Gozie has been a handful since he’s come up and he’s been a little bit behind in terms of his fitness when he originally joined the group.

“He’s just been building up as he goes along and as the games go by he’s just getting fitter and stronger and ultimately harder to play against.

“I think in the run of cup games we had it helped him get that match sharpness back. You can see what he offers with the goal and the opportunity he created in the second half when he was on his own and shown great power, pace and skill to make things difficult for defenders.

“These are guys who have played in the Premier League, so they’re no mugs and he gave them a right good game.”