DOUGIE Imrie insists his Morton players can be proud of guaranteeing their Championship safety with one game to spare.

Despite losing to Inverness Caley Thistle in their final home match of the season on Saturday, the Ton can once again prepare for life in the second tier next season after results elsewhere meant they secured their safety.

Dunfermline and Ayr United both failed to win meaning they can now longer catch the Greenock side, with Imrie’s men guaranteed a seventh-placed finish at the least.

Imrie has now achieved what he set out to do which was to keep the club in the Championship after taking charge when they were rock bottom at the end of December.

The 38-year-old praised his players for turning around their campaign.

He told the Tele: "I am immensely proud of everybody.

"The players have been different class.

"We would have loved to have stayed up on our own accord, but for us we had the points on the board, so it was always going to be difficult for the teams below us.

"They knew that they had to win. When you have that little safety net you are always in a good place, but we would have loved to have done it to give the fans a win with the final home game of the season."

Imrie was disappointed with Roddy MacGregor's goal, which saw his side end the campaign with back-to-back home defeats, and he insists there is room for improvement as they now start to build for next season.

He said: "I'm bitterly disappointed with the goal.

"Again it is a mistake from ourselves. We allowed the boy [MacGregor] in the pitch and it is a great finish from the kid, but we should never allow it to happen.

"They are things we will obviously need to eradicate for next season because it has been happening too many times.

"That is why we have been losing stupid goals.

"Even last week against Hamilton it was another mistake and we don’t deal with it properly.

"You can go back to our other few games as well.

"It is the same things that are happening every week, but that is the league.

"It is fine margins and again we are on the end of one that we didn't stop."

The Morton boss praised Saturday’s opponents as Billy Dodds can now look towards the play-offs after securing third place.

Imrie added: "Inverness are a good team, we knew the task at hand before they came here.

"They have been on a good run recently, but for us it was a bit of a huff and puff again.

"I think it is that time of the season when boys are flat on their feet, and we tried to freshen it up by putting on a few subs, but it didn’t get the desired effect.

"That is the problem, when you are putting on subs, they need to make an impact and on Saturday it didn’t happen, so from that aspect I am disappointed.

"But we just have to regroup and go again next week up at Arbroath for the final game."