Stephen Robinson: Dumbarton pitch was like Royal Portrush rough!

Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson admitted that coping the lengthy grass at Dumbarton on Tuesday night had provided an additional challenge to his troops
Stephen Robinson compared the lengthy grass at Dumbarton to the rough at Open Championship golf (Pic by Ian McFadyen)Stephen Robinson compared the lengthy grass at Dumbarton to the rough at Open Championship golf (Pic by Ian McFadyen)
Stephen Robinson compared the lengthy grass at Dumbarton to the rough at Open Championship golf (Pic by Ian McFadyen)

'Well's slick passing game was tested on the awkward surface at the League One minnows' tiny C and G Stadium, but the Premiership big guns still prevailed 2-0 with goals by Christian Ilic and Peter Hartley as they made it three Betfred Cup Group E wins out of three.

Robinson said: “Dumbarton made life difficult, they sit in.

“Credit to Jim (Duffy, Dumbarton manager) he had them very well organised.

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“I think the pitch made the evening a lot more difficult than it should have been.

“It was like playing in the rough at Royal Portrush.

“But if I’m Jim I’ll do exactly the same.

“We had to find solutions to that. We couldn’t play as slick as the other night but what pleased me most was our work-rate and work ethic.

“We didn’t take the game lightly. We gave Dumbarton the respect they deserve and the longest we didn’t have the ball was about six or seven seconds which was fantastic.

"We found the solutions to the problems they created by defending so deep and the pitch and I thought we thoroughly deserved to win.

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"That's three clean sheets, we're creating a lot of chances. It should have been more goals.

"The criticism is maybe we weren't quite ruthless enough. The wide players were finding it difficult to run with the ball to be fair with the pitch.

"And we couldn't quite get our shots off as quickly as we wanted to.

"But there were lots of pleasing aspects of the game."