Dumbarton lost their first game in more than a month as they made a series of defensive errors in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat against Airdrieonians.

Calum Gallagher gave the hosts a very early lead and then Reghan Tumlity, fortuitously, equalised for Sons before Dale Carrick scored twice before the interval to put the game out of Sons’ reach.

There were a couple of changes to the starting XI as Rico Quitongo was forced out with a knee injury, replaced by Matthew Shiels, and Stefan McCluskey was preferred to PJ Crossan.

It had barely turned three o’clock when the Diamonds took the lead through Gallagher – there were just 23 seconds on the clock when the former Dumbarton man capitalised on a spillage from Conor Brennan to knock the ball home.

He perhaps should have doubled the lead five minutes later but headed wide from close range with the goal at his mercy.

Sons were back in the game on 16 minutes when Joe McKee fed the ball right to Tumlity who then burst down the wing, with his delivery looping over David Hutton in the Airdrieonians goal and crashing in to the net.

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It looked completely unintentional but Sons would have just been pleased to be level after a slow start to the game.

Morgyn Neill then had a couple of opportunities for Dumbarton with his left-footed strike flying just wide of the top corner after his initial goal-bound header was sliced away.

But the hosts regained their lead through Carrick on 35 minutes when his low strike from 12-yards went through the legs of Brennan.

And it went from bad to worse for Dumbarton before the break.

Neither Neill or Shiels took control of a forward ball, which allowed Carrick to stroke it home for his second.

Gallagher could have put the game out of Sons’ reach as the interval approached, but he never got enough contact after finding space in the box as Brennan collected.

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But it was still going to be difficult for Dumbarton in the second-half, and an early goal for the away side would have done wonders in a bid to salvage something from the game.

They came so close to finding one through Ryan McGeever as the defender headed towards goal from McKee’s corner, only for Hutton to make a superb stop to claw it off the line.

Carrick came close to securing a hat-trick with two powerful efforts that flew just by the post, with the closest Dumbarton coming to rescuing anything from the game being two strikes from distance from both Isaac Layne and McCluskey that also failed to find the target.

Sons remain in fifth place in League One despite the loss, but have the opportunity to bounce back with three home games in a row starting with East Fife this Saturday. Kick-off 3pm.

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