An injury was to prove doubly costly for Dalbeattie Star at Berwick Rangers on Saturday.
A nasty head knock to defender Ross Green meant more than a quarter of an hour of injury time was played in the first half.
And Berwick’s Ali Forster took full advantage of the extended half to fire his side into the lead at the break.
That paved the way for early second-half goals from Dan Purves and Joao Balde to wrap up the three points for the hosts.
Star boss Ritchie Maxwell said: “For 20 minutes, we were doing OK and it was an even game, there wasn’t much between the teams.
“Ross has then taken a bad head knock and has had to go to hospital for six stitches. We have had to take him off and have ended up with three full-backs in the back four, which is not ideal.
“We were still coping pretty well but they scored to make it 1-0 in the 50th minute of the first half. It was a bit of a sucker-punch that we had managed to hold out for so long.
“I’ve no complaints about the injury time as Ross was down for a while but it was a bit of a blow right before half time.
“We came out and have conceded again early in the second half which has killed our momentum.”
Star were without five key players for the trip to the Borders but Maxwell refused to use that as an excuse.
And he felt his side did well despite being on the wrong side of a 3-0 scoreline.
He explained: “I said after the game that it is such small margins at this level. There was a mistake for a second goal — it wasn’t a massive mistake but with the quality of teams you’re up against, you’re going to get punished, whereas at lower levels you might not. That changed the game.
“The boys worked hard enough and kept their shape well, it was just the five minutes before half-time and the five or 10 minutes after.”
Green is set to be sidelined for a number of weeks while he recovers but there was a positive as he was replaced by Dean Brotherson, who was making his return from injury.
He’ll be available for Saturday’s game against Spartans and Maxwell is hoping to have most, if not all, of last wee’s absent five available.
He added: “Even as a player, Spartans are a team that we always seem to have done well against. They are maybe not as high as they would expect to be at this stage of the season.
