Dumbarton were comfortably beaten by League One side East Fife 2-0 in the Betfred Scottish League Cup on Tuesday night at the Cheaper Insurance Direct Stadium.

The Fifers scored both goals in the first half, with Kevin Smith and Paul McManus finding the net.

And the home side’s woes were compounded with Grant Gallagher seeing straight red after 56 minutes after he kicked out at Smith.

Defeat leaves the Stevie Aitken’s at the bottom of Group A in the League Cup with Dundee.

The play was fairly even before Smith scored the opener after 19 minutes, bagging his second goal in two games after nodding home a header from right back Scott Mercer’s pinpoint cross.

And the hosts lack of attacking threat was clear for all to see, Robert Thomson looked isolated up front, and they huffed and puffed but never looked like blowing the house down.

Josh Todd made his debut at the Rock, and was one of the only players to be able to hold their heads high with a display that did little to build up hopes for the Sons faithful for the upcoming season.

And after 39 minutes the visitors got their deserved second goal through frontman McManus, with the Dumbarton defence falling apart and the 33-year-old was able to fire in.

After the break, the Sons looked to press their opposition and looked full of endeavour to begin the half. But on the hottest day of the year, the only thing hot about Dumbarton was their tempers, as Gallagher was sent off after 56 minutes.

He was shown a straight red by the ref for lashing out at Smith, his frustration was clear to see as he was unable to win the ball back.

Shortly afterwards East Fife had another chance to score, through the combination of McManus and winger Mark Lamont, which caused Dumbarton a lot of trouble on the night, with Mark Brown in the end making a comfortable save.

Garry Fleming then clashed heads with East Fife’s Gary Naysmith after another dispute between the two teams, and both were lucky to just see yellow cards.

Donald McCallum came on for the home side and he ran straight at the East Fife defence, something the Sons had been crying out for the whole game.

The hosts best bit of attacking play came a few minutes from the end of the game, when McCallum teed up Thomson, who hit the ball cleanly on the volley, but the keeper was able to make the save.

However, the game was long lost by then. Dumbarton’s passing was slack, with many players misplacing simple passes, and they were getting frustrated too easily when a decision did not go their way.

Aitken’s team travel up to Dundee on Saturday in their third game of the cup campaign, kick-off is 3pm.

Dumbarton: Brown, Pettigrew, Docherty, Buchanan, Stevenson, Todd, Gallagher, Fleming, Thomson, Smith (McCallum, 68), Stirling.

Substitutes not used: Barclay, Clark, Kassarate, Barr.

East Fife Goodfellow, Mercer, Kane, Page, Lamont (Brown, 70), Smith, Wilkie, Robinson, Naysmith, McManus (Duggan, 63 (Slattery, 80)) Substitutes not used: Austin, Muir, Gray, Mutch.