Dumbarton 0 - 2 St Mirren: St Mirren romping numbers game

St Mirrens Stephen McGinn eludes Tom Walshs challenge. Picture: SNS.

Potentially, the Paisley club are only two months away from a return to the Premiership from which they were demoted in 2015. After watching his side succumb to visitors they held for 47 minutes – but never looked like holding off for the full 90 – Dumbarton manager Stevie Aitken was unequivocal about the destination of the second-tier title. “St Mirren have momentum, a great group of players and a lot of quality,” he said. “There’s no doubt they’ll go on and win the league, and credit to them.”

Aitken, whose part-timers remain a credible tenth, delineated an encounter settled by second-half strikes by Cammy Smith and Stephen McGinn as a contest between the Championship haves and have nots. “What you’ve got is a team top of the tree, playing well and confidence sky high and a team at the other end whose confidence is not as high,” he said. “First half I thought we were good, as good as St Mirren were. But we had a ten-minute spell in the second half when we switched off twice and conceded two poor goals.”

There was a greater gulf between the teams than the period that brought the two-goal burst, St Mirren firmly with the bit between their teeth. On a gluepot of a pitch, they stuck to their tasks purposefully, even when their first-period domination yielded no spoils. Scott Gallacher blocking one-on-one from Celtic loanee Lewis Morgan and Gavin Reilly tugging a shot wide when in a scoring position accounted for that.

The complexion of the afternoon was irreversibly altered when a glancing header by Smith inside the six-yard box found the net only two minutes after the restart. When McGinn then crafted his first goal of the season courtesy of swishing his left leg to side-foot in a low-angled effort from 22 yards out on the right, another three-point haul was guaranteed for Jack Ross’s side that seem firmly on a title march.

“That’s encouraging,” he said of the driven appearance of his players. “You try to foster it as a manager, but naturally good results and performances and finding yourself top help grow that. Every time we win a game it’s another one chalked down at the end of the season. They are in a really good place, individually and as a squad and long may it continue. There will be bumps along the way but it’s about how I help them, I get over those bumps and make sure they keep faith in how good they are.”