Sunday 1st November 2020
JIM DUFFY was relieved to be spared the dilemma of putting an outfield player in goal, while delighted with the performance in an eventful 2-0 win away to Airdrieonians.
Having already lost keeper Kevin Dabrowski in the warm-up, there was concern when his replacement, Chris Smith, sustained an injury with less than 10 minutes to go.
Sons already had their two goals on the board by then, with Jaime Wilson’s opener followed by an own goal.
And fortunately, Smith was able to see the afternoon through after treatment, with Dumbarton maintaining their 100 per cent league clean sheet record so far.
The boss said: “We wanted to keep our two centre halves in their positions. We definitely didn’t want to put one of them in goal.
“I think if the situation had occurred then Ross (Forbes) had said that he would go in goal.
“When you have to put an outfield player in goal it’s just a time when you have to gamble. Fortunately we didn’t need to take it and Chris, despite being injured, remained there as a presence.
“When you get a result, it makes things a bit better. It was extremely difficult today for both sets of players and it is a thankless task being asked to play in the conditions we had.
“But it was all about character and good old-fashioned values. It was about rolling your sleeves up and getting on with it and both teams did that. And they deserve a lot of credit.
“You have to defend your box and Chris came in and did great. He made two or three brilliant saves at key moments in the game.
“The back four were superb in terms of how we defended the box – we were very well organised.
“The first goal was a result of good combination play from our strikers. Jaime Wilson took a gamble and although David Hutton is a good keeper, Jaime finished really well.
“For the second, Nat Wedderburn did really well to send Jaime in on goal. We’ve just told Jaime to be positive and he got in behind and stretched the Airdrie defence.”
The manager added that strikers Denny Johnstone and PJ Crossan, who missed the game, are set to be missing again for Tuesday’s fixture against Clyde.
However, Donald Morrison is set to be available again after he too was absent against Airdrie.
Andy Galloway