Dumbarton 3 Forfar Athletic 1

The ‘Loons’ despite an improved second-half performance, although one could say too little too late, headed home from the C&G Systems Stadium with no reward following a 3-1 defeat from the ‘Sons.’

There is no doubt that the Athies performance for most of the first period was not acceptable, the home side moving into a 3-0 lead by the 34 minute with debutant Adam Frizzell signed on loan just before Monday’s deadline having a dream debut.

The visitors showed two changes from last week’s starting eleven with Murray Mackintosh and Jordan Kirkpatrick replacing Jamie Bain and Connor Coupe, but after dominating the early exchanges it was Dumbarton who took the lead in the 11^th minute.  Morgyn Neill rose unchallenged in the box to bullet a right-wing corner past Marc McCallum.

Frizzell then took ‘centre stage’ scoring number two in the 28^th minute shrugging off a couple of half-hearted challenges before netting with a great strike from the edge of the box.  

Six minutes later he added a third cutting in from the right flank before curling an inch-perfect finish high into the top right-hand corner of the net.

By the time the second period commenced Jim Weir had already made two changes with Coupe replacing Tapping and MacPhee on for Irvine and within three minutes of the re-start the visiting fans rose to their feet to acclaim a fine goal, Jordan Kirkpatrick making no mistake from ten yards out as he ran on to an inch-perfect cut back from Russell McLean.

Forfar then had their best spell of the contest but failed to find a second counter, their nearest effort a Murray MacKintosh header palmed clear at full stretch by Conor Brennan.

In fairness, no one could deny that Dumbarton deserved their three-point haul as they held out comfortably in the closing minutes, in fact, McCallum showed his class once again with a breathtaking save at full stretch to deny home skipper Stuart Carswell.

Jim Weir and his squad now have two weeks in which to work on putting matters in order and getting back to winning ways, hopefully with Dale Hilson at least fit, prior to the start of the second quarter of the season.

Apart from their normal training sessions in that period, a closed-doors friendly is in the pipeline, prior to the visit to second in the table East Fife on the 19^th of the month.