Dumbarton 1-0 East Fife - Crighton's bullet header secures third straight win for Sons

Sean Crighton’s thumping header three minutes from time secured a third straight victory for Dumbarton against East Fife.

The veteran bulleted home Ryan Wallace’s corner to secure three points, in a game Sons largely controlled - albeit whilst creating few clearcut chances.

And boss Stevie Farrell, who made a quadruple substitution in the second-half that helped swing the game in the home side’s favour, felt it was a merited victory.

The boss said: “I thought we deserved it. Over the 90 minutes I felt that we were the better side. We started to look a bit jaded after the hour, but when we made the changes it freshened us up.

“We changed our shape to try and get Kalvin Orsi on the ball a bit more, and he wins the corner that the winning goal comes from.

“It’s a fantastic delivery from Ryan and a terrific header from Sean to secure a really important three points.

“We knew we needed to build a squad so we could impact games from the bench. We’ve built a really strong squad.

“The players have put us in a good position just now. But we certainly won’t be getting carried away.”

Missing Carlo Pignatiello through suspension, Farrell was forced into a reshuffle - with Matty Shiels recalled to play at left-centre-back alongside Sean Crighton and Mark Durnan.

Aron Lynas moved to right-wing-back after shaking off the knock which forced him off at Ochilview.

The new look back line had a scare early on as Jack Healy’s cross hit the outstretched leg of Scott Shepherd and rebounded off the post in the opening minutes.

Sons hit back, and Finlay Gray found no takers for his cutback after a surging run from midfield.

Jinky Hilton then showed great footwork to open up space on the edge of the area, but he flashed narrowly wide with