3 things we learned as Morton fall to Queen's Park defeat

Dom Thomas' first half strike would turn out to be the winner as his deflected hit on 43-minutes deceived Ryan Mullen in the Ton net as Queen's Park ran out 1-0 winners at the City Stadium within the Hampden complex.

But the Ton boss was left to cut a frustrated figure on the touchline as his side continued to miss-fire on league duty with only Raith Rovers now sitting beneath them in the table after five games.

And as their wait for a win goes on -  the Ton chief will now look to dissect what transpired in the reaches of Hampden and what needs to change ahead of this weekend's Championship crunch clash against Airdrie.

Here's three things we learned as Ton drew their third blank in six games.

Shot shy

Niall McGinn passed up a glorious chance against Queen's Park (Image: Gary Bradley)

It wasn’t an afternoon that bore much fruit for Dougie Imrie’s front line.

The two best chances of note fell to Niall McGinn, who fired straight at Callum Ferrie, and Owen Moffat who horribly put the follow up in a second phase of play wide of the mark when the net really should’ve been rippling.

The second half saw only one real mention of Ferrie being worked when Arron Lyall’s shot from range forced the English goalie into a smart stop before Reynolds was beat to the rebound by Dane Murray.

Alarmingly, Ton’s no.9 and focal point didn’t get a single shot off in his 65-minute run out.

McGinn had one, as did Moffat, but subs Jordan Davies and Lamar Reynolds didn’t muster a single effort in their cameos when they were needing to change the game.

The trio need to find their feet and fast after drawing yet another blank.

Missing link

There was plenty of flashes across goal but nobody there to take them (Image: Gary Bradley)

Against the wind in the first half. Ton did look to get the ball on the deck and work their way through the thirds.

They also showed their ability to switch it up and go long to either JET or Niall McGinn at the top end of the pitch. That’s what saw them pass up a glorious opportunity midway through the first half.

The second half couldn’t have been further from that fact as Imrie’s men began to look more laboured and less likely to have the desired effect in the final third as time progressed.

The deeper JET got, the more the onus fell on Niall McGinn to try and make things happen and on the few times that Ton looked dangerous on the break, time and time again the wrong choice was made as passes were cut out or played behind a runner in behind.

Something needs to change and Imrie will be hoping that Nathan Shaw can hit the ground running when he eventually returns to full fitness and that Michael Garrity can pick up from where he left off before picking up an injury in training.

Fine Margins

Queen's Park hit the bar on a number of occasions (Image: Gary Bradley)

Football is a game that can be turned on a sixpence, it takes a second to score a goal and that goal can change the complexion of the whole 90 minutes.

The game might’ve finished with Queen’s Park winning by a singular goal. But had Roddy MacGregor, Zak Rudden or Dom Thomas’ second half efforts have been a couple of centimetres thinner, Ryan Mullen could well have been picking the ball out of his net as much as a further four times.

Former Inverness prodigy MacGregor struck the post early in the second half, before Rudden and Thomas saw efforts crash off the bar with the backline at sixes and sevens.

That being said, both JET and Ali Crawford saw great forward passes slightly under hit, that could’ve seen Niall McGinn and Owen Moffat in behind and clean on goal.

McGinn himself will know he should've done better with his chance earlier in the first half.

But it wasn’t to be and Ton now head into this weekend’s game against Airdrie with some added pressure behind them.