Dumbarton

A Nathan Austin hat-trick helped resurgent Caley Thistle rout the struggling Sons in their biggest win of the season.

Second-bottom Dumbarton had to take the lead three times before they held on for victory and kept Dundee United sweating over a promotion play-off spot.

Dundee United brought a timely end to their Tannadice woes as they celebrated their first home league victory in three trying months. Csaba Laszlo’s side finally savoured that winning home feeling for the first time since sweeping past relegated Brechin 4-1 back on 2 January to breathe new life into their play-off hopes.

Second top Livingston strolled to a 3-0 win against a Dumbarton side destined to finish second bottom.

St Mirren took another step closer to a top-flight return as Dumbarton were left staring at the prospect of the play-offs as their route to Championship survival.

There was an element of Inverness Caley Thistle’s last-gasp victory over Dumbarton in the Irn Bru Cup final on Saturday that was down to following the road less travelled. Not many folk would care to make the testing car journey from the Highland capital to York and then back to South Queensferry as manager John Robertson did over the course of Friday and the early hours of the following morning. However, it proved ultimately to be a trophy-winning gamble.

Cup competitions have presented Inverness Caley Thistle with many a memorable moment in their short history and yesterday another was added to their folklore as a last-gasp goal from Carl Tremarco delivered them victory in the Irn-Bru Cup final at McDiarmid Park. As a game it conspicuously lacked the fizz associated with the competition sponsors, but for Tremarco who was sent-off during the Highland side’s 2015 Scottish Cup final win over Falkirk, it provided a moment of sublime redemption.

Dumbarton manager Stephen Aitken knows that facing Inverness Caledonian Thistle in today’s Irn-Bru Cup final at St Johnstone’s McDiarmid Park is a big game because his assistant Ian Durrant is getting butterflies in his stomach at the prospect.

Dumbarton earned their second win of the week over doomed Brechin to give themselves a boost ahead of Saturday’s Challenge Cup final.

A moment of magic from Dom Thomas and a horror penalty miss from Kevin Nisbet helped Queen of the South to a 1-0 win on Dumbarton’s YOUR Radio 103FM Stadium glue-pot pitch.

Falkirk endured a frustrating afternoon in failing to break down Dumbarton, chiefly due to the Sons’ goal living a charmed life.

There was no cause to quibble with the scoreline at Cappielow yesterday – this victory for Morton was absolutely as comfortable as the margin suggests. On paper this all Championship tie, featuring two sides who had drawn their two previous league meetings, looked like it might be a close run thing. The reality was that the contrasting recent form of both sides was cruelly laid bare, with the visitors looking every bit like a side that is now embroiled in a battle to avoid a relegation play-off spot.

David Hopkin resolutely refuses to focus on anything other than the here and now, but even he must be eyeing an end-of-season shot at promotion after watching Livingston move into third in the Championship.

The other night, in the middle of a touchline ban, Arsene Wenger faced a dilemma and the potential of having insult added to inconvenience. Normally when managers are banished to the stands they watch from the directors’ box but at Chelsea the poshest seats are right across the field from the dressing rooms. That would have meant a yomp at half-time, losing valuable minutes from his team talk, when he would have been highly conspicuous in his trademark long grey quilted gown – and even before Antonio Conte sneered at him for being “old”, the Arsenal boss would have faced considerable abuse from the successors of the Stamford Bridge skinhead cognoscenti.

The numbers are starting to add up for St Mirren. Yesterday’s win extended their unbeaten sequence to seven games, was their eighth victory in ten Championship encounters and extended to eight points their lead over Dundee United.

It is all coming up roses for Ross McCrorie. The Rangers teenager is fresh from signing a new four-and-a-half-year contract after blossoming into a holding midfielder in an Ibrox team threatening growth under Graeme Murty.

The play-off places at either end of the Championship table were uppermost in both these sides’ minds going into this game and a majestic first-half strike by Joe Cardle was enough to ensure it was Dunfermline whose hopes of being in the mix for the head to heads for promotion that were reinforced.

Dumbarton bounced back from their Boxing Day defeat by Livingston to earn a hard-fought point at Palmerston as Queens’ play-off hopes suffered another blow. A share of the spoils was the least the Sons deserved against the Dumfries side who have now won just once in their last seven games.