Morton 0-1 Alloa: Morton rue missed chances

RANGERS manager Ally McCoist managed to have his side’s Petrofac Training Cup quarter-final against East Fife postponed due to a few of his players being away on international duty.

Alloa goalscorer Ryan McCord gets a leg in ahead of Mortons Thomas OWare at Cappielow. Picture: SNS

Scorer: Alloa - McCord (89)

How Morton manager Jim Duffy must wish that one more member of his squad could have been called up along with top scorer Declan McManus, who was badly missed here while away with Scotland’s Under-21 side preparing for their final European Championship qualifying match in Luxembourg today.

That would have allowed him to invoke the SPFL rules which would have seen this tie rescheduled.

Instead, Duffy had to watch on in frustration as half-time substitute Reece Hands somehow contrived to miss four sitters – two from point-blank range – before Morton were knocked out by a sucker punch at the death.

“I was sent on to get the team on the ball a bit more and get us playing so, obviously, I’m disappointed at the missed chances,” said Hands, the former Blackburn Rovers midfielder. “However, I’m not going to dwell on them. I’m just looking ahead to our next game and moving on from there.

“The bonus was that I got myself into those positions in the first place but the next step is to put those chances away and I know I’m capable of doing that.

“I slipped at a few of them today and I was unlucky with another one. The other was just down to basic reactions – I turned and the ball went through my legs.

“I’ve got to expect the ball to come to me in that situation. But I can’t do anything about it now.

“I stuck one away at Forfar in our previous match and it would have been nice to have scored the winner here.

“I scored four goals in my first seven games here so maybe those misses were down to me being out for a while. I haven’t been starting many games recently but I should still be finishing those chances off because I’m better than that. It just wasn’t meant to be today.”

Alloa, through Liam Buchanan and Greig Spence, also spurned golden opportunities but midfielder Ryan McCord found the energy in the final minute to make an untracked run to the far post and head home Mark Docherty’s cross. “We’ve played a lot better and lost but we’ll take that any day of the week,” said the 25-year-old former Dundee United player.

“That’s probably the worst we’ve played this season but, especially in the cups, the result is more important than the performance.

“We have as good a chance as anybody now of reaching the final. Being in a semi-final this early in the season just adds to the confidence we got from beating Hibs last weekend.”