It was a bitterly disappointing evening for us in the William Hill Scottish Premiership as fell to a 4-1 to Dundee at Dens Park.
Despite starting brightly and taking the lead after just 71 seconds through Nicky Cadden, the game turned on its head when Jordan Obita saw red after 12 minutes.
It was the boost Dundee needed and they made their numerical advantage count through goals from Jordan McGhee, a Nectar Triantis own goal, Seb Palmer-Houlden and Curtis Main.
Boss David Gray made four changes to his side from our last outing, with Martin Boyle, Lewis Miller, Junior Hoilett and Rudi Molotnikov all on the bench after returning from international duty last week.
The exception to that was Rocky Bushiri who came into the starting XI to replace the injured Marvin Ekpiteta and in doing so, start his first league match of the season.
Josh Campbell, Nicky Cadden and Mykola Kuharevich were the other starters as we lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
The game overcame Storm Bert, however, fog descended before kick-off and caused a 15-minute delay to the start.
When the match did get underway, we started on the front foot and took the lead after just 71 seconds when Nicky Cadden guided Obita’s low cross past Trevor Carson from 12 yards.
We were enjoying a lot of luck down the left-hand side with Obita and Elie Youan working together to find good pockets of space to test the home defence.
In the sixth minute, Kuharevich went close to doubling our lead when he was picked out by a long Obita throw-in, spinning away from his marker on the edge of the box before flashing an effort just wide of Carson’s near post and into the side netting.
We went close again two minutes later when Chris Cadden’s deep cross found Kuharevich peeling off around the back and his volley on the stretch was again into the side netting.
It was going as well as it could in the opening ten or so minutes only for Obita to be shown a straight red card for a stretching challenge on Mo Sylla that certainly caught the Dundee man and gave Nick Walsh little option.
That left us playing 80 minutes with just ten men and Dundee wasted little time putting us under pressure due to their numerical advantage. They had efforts from Josh Mulligan, Astley and Simon Murray before Astley then struck the post with a cross-come-shot.
It felt like a goal was coming and unfortunately it arrived on 25 minutes when McGhee found the far corner of Josef Bursik’s net from Billy Robertson’s cutback.
Palmer-Houlden then struck the crossbar with a header from close range as the hosts looked to take the lead.
Bursik was then called into action to push away an angled Lyle Cameron shot with his fingertips. It was a terrific save from the goalkeeper, however, the hosts scored from the resultant corner kick. The ball was delivered into the front post where it was flicked on by Antonio Portales and struck the back of Triantis’ head for an unfortunate own goal.
Our reaction to falling behind was to make a double change with Nick and Chris Cadden being replaced by Miller and Jack Iredale.
Dundee defender Mulligan had endured a torrid opening ten minutes before the red card, however, thereafter he improved, galloping forward at will and as the half was drawing to a close, he fired just wide.
In stoppage time at the end of the first half, Dundee added a third. Iredale played the ball back to Bursik who took a heavy touch that allowed Palmer-Houlden to block before slotting into the empty net to give the Dee a 3-1 lead going into half-time.
Shortly after the restart, we had an opportunity to reduce arrears when Portales failed to clear Miller’s cross and the ball dropped to Joe Newell, who volleyed wide under pressure from Astley.
Dundee was soon back on the attack with Palmer-Houlden only just failing to convert a cross flashed across the face of our goal before Bursik tipped the resultant corner kick over his crossbar.
On 56 minutes, a Sylla through ball found Palmer-Houlden running off Warren O’Hora and his shot on the angle was into the side netting.
The second half was flat and lacked the intensity of the first and that suited a Dundee side that had done the damage in the opening 45 minutes. Despite enjoying more possession, we were struggling to create anything meaningful in the final third despite our best efforts with 10-men.
Gray threw on Boyle, Dylan Levitt and Molotnikov to try and get us back into the game only for Dundee to stand resolute.
Indeed, they went close to adding to their lead when Cameron ran at our backline who sat off him before stepping away from O’Hora and seeing his shot from the edge of the box deflected just over the crossbar by Miller.
Dundee added a fourth goal in stoppage time when Rocky was caught in possession by Cameron who played in substitute Curtis Main, and he slotted it clinically past Bursik.
That was the last action of note with the referee bringing proceedings to a close seconds later.
