Tony Mitchell made another fine save, this time from John Maisano, after 81 minutes, tipping the fiercely struck drive wide of target. Mr. Maisano, hardly the darling of the home fans due to his habit of play-acting and tackling in an uncompromising manner ( in tandem with his equally despised brother ), left the field to be replaced by James McAlistair.
Morton were now in command and were happy to play out time. Marco Maisano brought out a stop from Mitchell, and then the referee rounded off his own outstanding afternoon by yellow carding Sinclair for a supposed foul on Cannie, who lay spreadeagled on the turf but made a surprisingly quick recovery. Cannie would have the final effort at goal, capitalising on some dreadful defending as Queen's totally wilted, but the ball flashed wide.
Whether Morton deserved to win this game or not is a matter of conjecture, but there is little doubt in my mind that Queen's could have taken something from the game. That we didn't is demoralising, and the team are surely not performing at their best at present. At least earlier in the season we were creating chances: now we are scarcely doing that, albeit this was the first time since November that we had failed to score in a game. The way the players' spirit seemed to be sapped by the Morton goal is also worrying.
The aim for the remainder of the season must not only be to secure seventh place, but to make sure that the club winds up with a higher points total than last season's 35. If that isn't achieved, then you would be forced to admit that despite all of the improvements that seem to have been made on the surface - and our performances have generally been better- the season would be a complete failure.
( Canning ), Whelan ( Gallagher ), Gemmell ( Menelaws ), McCallum, Allan.
Substitutes not used: Fisher.
Booked: White, Clark, Fallon, Menelaws, Sinclair.
Sent-off: White ( second bookable offence ).
Morton: Coyle, Collins, Bottiglieri, MacGregor, Gaughan, M. Maisano, Miller, J. Maisano ( McAlistair ), Cannie, Adam ( Uotinen ), Dale.
Substitutes not used: Bannerman, MacDonald, McGurn.
Booked: M. Maisano.
Goal: Adam 51.
Attendance: 1,361.