Dumbarton manager Stevie Aitken said that tiredness got the better of his side as they fell to a 6-2 defeat to Scottish Premiership team Dundee at Dens Park in the Betfred Cup.

The visitors had lead 2-1 going into the break, but five goals from the hosts after half time sealed the victory.

This was the third game in a week for the Sons, after playing both Forfar and East Fife earlier in the week as tired legs began to take over the part-timers, while Dundee last played on Saturday.

He said: "It’s harsh on the players, the league cup has not been very kind to us. We’ve only got 11 players we’ve been picking from just now.

"We’ve had three tough games, and I thought we saw in the first half what we are capable of doing, that was the real Dumbarton.

"In the second half we lost our legs, and when you lose that you lose the shape of the team and it makes it hard for the players, but we just have to take it on the chin.

"The league cup has come too early for us, we’re working really hard to get players to come into us."

But Dumbarton have numerous positives to take from their first half performance, and despite conceding a cheap goal, bounced back and took the lead two goals via centre-halves Frazer Wright and Gregor Buchanan.

He said: "We looked a real threat going forward [in the first half], we looked solid, but the first goal was a poor one to lose, and Mark put his hands up for that one but we came back into it really well – and we knew the second half was going to be really tough.

"Dundee came out of the traps well, and the legs starting tiring.

It’s tough on part-time players having three games in a week at this stage of the season, so I feel for them a wee bit, but we’ll pick ourselves up and we’ll get ready for the season."