Match Report

The Sons continued their preparations for our return to William Hill League 2 with a friendly away to West of Scotland First Division side Irvine Meadow this evening at a wet and windy Meadow Park.

The Sons used the match to give minutes to many of our new signings and a few trialists with manager Stevie Farrell looking for his best XI heading into next weeks Premier Sports Cup matches.

The hosts started brighter with several early efforts on loanee keeper Ollie Ecrepont’s goal without forcing the stopper into any real action and had the ball in the net early doors but were stopped in their celebrations by the assistants flag.

Dumbarton also had early chances of their own with Meadow keeper Jamie Barclay, formerly of the Rock, forced to deny our trialist striker after a great through ball from Chris Johnston.

However, it would be the hosts who would open the scoring, converting a penalty after a trip from Mark Durnan in the area.

The Sons would go in at the break level, with Tony Wallace delivering a pinpoint cross from the left-hand side onto the head of Ally Roy who netted his first goal since his return to the club with a cushioned header into the corner.

Meadow would lead again five minutes into the second period with Shaun Gallacher curling an admittedly brilliant strike past Ecrepont from the left-hand side.

We would lose skipper Durnan during this period as he was forced off with a knock.

Ollie would keep the score at 2-1 with two good stops within the next ten minutes of play before his opposite number Barclay would pass the ball out straight to our centre forward trialist wearing number 27, who smashed the ball home to level the match.

It would be another trialist who would give us the lead, with number 21 tapping home after Barclay could only parry out a driven cross from Theo McCormick on the right wing.

However, the ten men couldn’t hold on and the hosts would add two late goals from Ross McKenzie and Euan Baird to send us home with a 4-3 defeat.

A good run out and a different test for the boys than St Mirren, while a win is ideal in pre-season the main focus is fitness and building the on-park relationships as a new-look side.

The Sons head home to face Queen of the South on Saturday afternoon in our final pre-season match before the Premier Sports Cup kicks off the following weekend.

All at Dumbarton wish Irvine Meadow the best for their season and send our condolences to the club after the passing of the clubs former Junior Cup winner Robert Lewis, who had a perfectly observed minutes silence prior to the match.