Dumbarton1–0Brechin City

THE good news is that Jim McAllister's CD of the Piranhas playing 'Tom Hark' still works.

The bad news is that it took us 732 minutes of football to establish that.

But the great news may yet be still to come.

If Dumbarton had any aspirations at all of getting out of the division's bottom two, this was the must-win game to end them all.

It didn't have to be done spectacularly, or in any dominat fashion. They simply had to score more goals than Brechin.

Dimitris Froxylias opened the scoring on 37 minutes and, as it turned out, ended it as well.

They won't be selling DVDs of this game come the end of the season. But the job was done by that single goal, and help was received from Dunfermline in the form of their victory over Inverness CT.

It's a start, no more than that. There is still a lot of the mountain to climb. But Sons are off the ground.

From the start, Froxylias was the most likely to make the difference. He was unlucky on 13 minutes with a bending shot from the edge of the area which went just past.

He was then played in by Kyle Hutton at the end of a great run by the midfielder, but his finish was well over.

Andy Dowie then cleared off the line in a goalmouth scramble from a corner, but eight minutes from half time Sons had their first league goal since Boxing Day.

The ball broke to Froxylias in the area from Andy Stirling's assist, and his bending shot found the net.

Five minutes later all the good work was nearly undone when some slack retention of the ball led to a chance for Callum Tapping, but Scott Gallacher was alert.

The second half was a scrap from start to finish, but a bit less of a scrap in the final 15 minutes when the chances came more Stirling's way.

His low shot from the edge of the area was saved before he tried his luck from further out, only for the keeper to be on form again.

In injury time he was closer to goal at a narrow angle, but his shot was past the far post.

Job done. It now must be done again, to the same opposition, on Saturday.