For the second successive weekend, a high-stakes encounter in Angus wreaked damage on Morton’s prospects of avoiding relegation from the SPFL Championship. Having failed to get the win away to Arbroath a week past Friday that would have lifted them out of second-bottom spot and kept them in the second tier for another year, Gus MacPherson’s side found yet more woe yesterday as they ventured a further 13 miles up the north-east coast to Montrose for their play-off semi-final first leg.

It all started so well for Morton on a blustery afternoon at Links Park as Gary Oliver fired them ahead in the fifth minute. They never truly looked like building on this early lead, however, and Montrose, buoyed by pipping Falkirk to fourth place in League One on the last night of the regulation campaign, conjured a couple of magnificent second-half goals, scored by Russell McLean and Graham Webster, to claim a slender half-time advantage in the tie. Morton - with only 22 goals from their 27 Championship games and just two league wins in 2021 - must now find a way to outscore their buoyant opponents in Tuesday’s return leg at Cappielow if they are to maintain their hopes of avoiding demotion to the third tier. “We didn’t deal with the conditions in the second half,” lamented MacPherson. “We lost a really poor goal and you could see the lift it gave Montrose. We started well when the conditions were behind us but they used the conditions to their advantage in the second half. We’ve made it difficult for ourselves but we’ll treat the second leg as just another game.”

For Montrose, the dream is very much alive of achieving promotion to the Championship just six years after finishing last in League Two and requiring a play-off victory over Brora Rangers to stay in the league. The way they responded to Oliver’s opener - a low angled finish after being set up by Kalvin Orsi - suggests they are up for the challenge of trying to come through the play-offs as underdogs. McLean looped in a brilliant equaliser from just inside the box in 57 minutes before Webster - a survivor of the club’s doldrum days prior to Stewart Petrie’s arrival - finished off a lovely buildup with a stunning angled half-volley in the 78th minute.

Petrie - whose revitalised side have finished fourth in League One three years running - is taking nothing for granted as he recalls his side squandering a 2-1 first-leg advantage when losing 5-0 away to Queen of the South in their last tilt at the playoffs in 2019. “We were in the same position two years ago but within 30 minutes of the second leg we were out of the tie,” he said. “It’s a good result for us in horrible conditions but we’ve still got a hell of a lot of work to do. I’m really proud of the guys though, I thought they were excellent in the second half. The reaction to losing the early goal was excellent considering we were playing a full-time Championship team.”