Written by John - OTR Tuesday, 02 April 2002 00:00

Typical. Sons lose to the team bottom of the division who only had three attempts on goal the whole night and scored one of with them.

What makes it harder to take was the game should have been sewn up at half time. The 'Shire keeper, rightly awarded man on the match, pulled out three great saves in the first half. He tipped a Crilly header round the post, saved a thunderbolt from O'Neil and saved a shot from Dunn.

Dumbarton produced chance after chance in the first half. O'Neil laid on some precise passes, as did Joe Robertson. Robert Dunn was tormenting the 'Shire defence at every opportunity, even though it looked like he was carry a slight hamstring injury. Crosses rained in on the Shire keeper but there just wasn't anyone there to put the ball in the net. Sons players were combining well, even playing one-twos, and spreading the ball about the park. It was great to watch.If only one of them had hit the back of the net.

I don't what Tam Carson said to the team during the interval but the standard of football dropped significantly in the second half. It was back to the "hump the ball up the park to Brown" variety. Dunn dropped out the game, leaving Robertson to shoulder the creative burden. The team started to look edgy. Jack gave the ball away easily at one point which could have lead to a goal. It all went pear shaped in the 68th minute when Wight partially saved a 'Shire shot. The ball spilled out to Ure who stuck in under the keeper. There were so few 'Shire fans in the ground, that the goal was greeted with vitual silence.

From then on, you just knew that Sons were not going to claw this back. Sons' play got more desperate, yet more long balls, more passes going astray. Carson took off Robertson and Flannery and put on McKelvie and Dillon much to the fans disgust. Robertson had been having a good game. The closest we got to scoring was a a goal mouth scramble from a corner kick.

So instead of giving us a cushion over our nearest rivals, we find ourselves still in second place one point ahead of Peterhead who have a game in hand and two points ahead of Albion Rovers. Sons must win every game to go up.