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Cove Rangers held their nerve to come away with a deserved victory in what was at times a tousy cinch League One tussle with the Sons at the C&G Systems Stadium.

Skipper Mitch Megginson and midfielder Robbie Leitch netted inside the space of a minute, during the first quarter of the game, to seemingly put us in a strong position.

Home skipper Stuart Carswell replied with a spectacular free-kick right at the start of the second half to make things a bit more difficult than we had hoped for in game that was littered with bookings and became extremely scrappy.

We defended strongly after the Dumbarton goal though and were rewarded when a late penalty from Rory McAllister ensured we would come back up the road with all three points – much to the delight of the small band of Cove Rangers fans who had made the long trek south and made themselves heard throughout the 90 minutes.

We showed one change to the starting line-up, with Morgyn Neill in to face his former club for the unavailable Shay Logan.

Traffic problems at Stirling meant the players had to endure a four and a half hour journey to get to the ground and arrived later than normal, which also meant having to curtail their normal pre-match preparations.

Despite all of that, we began the stronger, dominating possession and causing the home defence problems with some clever passing moves.

But it was the Sons who had the first effort on target, when David Hopkirk’s low 20-yard shot in the 12th minute was easily gathered by Kyle Gourlay.

Left-back Harry Milne pushed forward to have our first effort at goal two minutes later, when he latched on to a lay-off from Leitch to blast a shot from the edge of the area over the crossbar.

Cove Rangers went ahead in the 22nd minute when MEGGINSON latched on to low pass forward from Ryan Strachan, which had been cleverly dummied by strike partner Rory McAllister, at the edge of the Dumbarton area and rifled an unstoppable shot past home keeper Sam Ramsbottom.

It was 2-0 within a minute when Blair Yule lofted the ball over from the right and LEITCH managed to beat Ramsbottom, although the ball appeared to cannon off the top of the midfielder’s shoulder at the edge of the six-yard area before looping over the keeper’s head and creeping over the line.

Gourlay made a decent save from another effort by Hopkirk as the home side went on the attack a couple of minutes later.

Yule went close just after the half hour with a long-range drive that cleared the Dumbarton crossbar by a couple of feet.

Dumbarton almost pulled a goal back just before the break when Callum Wilson lofted a free-kick forward from fully 40-yards that would have gone in if Gourlay hadn’t got back to claw the ball over his crossbar.

Dumbarton replied within two minutes of the restart, when CARSWELL curled a 20-yard free-kick over our defensive wall and inside Gourlay’s right post.

Ross Maclean was booked for fouling Milne, right on the touchline, in the 51st minute.

McAllister attempted a spectacular finish in the 55th minute, when keeper Ramsbottom’s clearance went straight to him, but the striker’s 35-yard lob went wide of the target.

Carswell was booked on the hour for a late challenge on Connor Scully, just inside the Cove Rangers half.

Neill followed him into the book a couple of minutes later for kicking the ball away after a foul had been awarded to Dumbarton.

The bookings continued with Lynch fortunate to escape with only yellow for fouling Scully, in the 70th minute as the game became a bit stop-start.

Megginson was also booked in the 74th minute for disputing the ref’s decision to award a foul to Dumbarton after Scott Ross seemed to have fairly cleared the ball.

Iain Vigurs was then cautioned for kicking the ball away as tempers became frayed.

We made a triple change after 77 minutes, with Jevan Anderson, Jamie Masson and Leighton McIntosh were brought on.

Cove Rangers secured the points when we were awarded a penalty in the 83rd minute, for a blatant trip by Ryan McGeever on McAllister.

The Dumbarton defender was booked for the foul before McALLISTER stepped up to calmly slot home from the spot to send the noisy wee army of Cove fans into raptures.

DUMBARTON: Ramsbottom, McGeever, Boyle, Lynch, Buchanan, Carswell (Stokes 80), Orsi, Paton, MacLean (Schiavone 80), Wilson, Hopkirk (Duthie 72).

Subs: Trialist,  Muir, McNight.

COVE RANGERS: Gourlay, Neill (Anderson 77), Milne, Scully (Masson 77), Ross, Strachan, Yule, Megginson, McAllister, Vigurs, Leitch (McIntosh 77).

Subs: McKenzie, Watson.

Referee: Duncan Williams.

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