DUMBARTON manager Stevie Aitken admitted his side’s defending in Saturday 5-0 defeat to Falkirk at the Rock was disastrous Sons were punished for their slack play by a ruthless Bairns side with John Baird firing a hat-trick.

Every goal on the day could be traced back to a slack piece of play or indecision from the home side and Aitken conceded the performance was well below what he expects.

He said: “I think there is no way to dress it up. The way we lost the goals, it was as cheap as what I have seen from us, at any level of football they were cheap.

“The miskick for the second one, we switched off for the first one. It was a disaster. We have had a lot of good days this year, a lot of good results but we have to take this on the chin and accept it wasn’t good enough.

“We had the two best chances in the first half with Willie Gibson and Grant Gallagher. But we gave them three goals on a plate, the second one our keeper miskicks it and they score, the third one wasn’t much better.

“At half-time we spoke about keeping it tight and not giving anything else away, then we try to play offside and they get in again and score a fourth.” Aitken admitted he has a big job ahead of him to pick the players up for next week’s visit of Morton, which now looks to be a crucial tie for Sons with Jim Duffy’s side three points ahead of Dumbarton, and Sons sitting just three points ahead of Livingston who occupy the relegation play-off spot.

He said: “It will be a big job, the boys are gutted. No-one likes to lose 5-0, especially in the manner we gave the goals away.

“We’ll get them in this week and pick them up because we can’t feel sorry for ourselves because we have a big game next week.

“It is a sore one, we let a lot of people down.”