Peterhead lost out 1-0 to a Forfar Athletic sucker-punch in League One despite dominating proceedings at Balmoor.
The Blue Toon had recorded their first home win of the campaign against Dumbarton, but couldn’t follow it up against Forfar, who climbed off the bottom of the division with their victory.
Centre-back Jason Brown returned from suspension for the visit of the Loons, while experienced defender Gary MacKenzie was back in the matchday squad.
The first home chance fell to Steven Boyd on four minutes, with the former Hamilton man poking the ball at goal following a stramash from Ryan Conroy’s corner.
Forfar, who’d had a couple of half chances, were gifted a big chance on 22 minutes when Kieran Freeman sold Peterhead keeper Josh Rae short with back pass, however, Rae got out quickly to save Jordan Allan’s low left-footed effort.
Both Boyd and Lyall Cameron passed up chances, before Peterhead’s first-half profligacy was punished on the stroke of the interval, with Bobby Barr’s looping header from Jack Mackenzie’s cross finding the top corner.
Veteran MacKenzie was sent on in place of Kyle Bailey at half-time, with Freeman moving to right-back, and the Blue Toon came out with the bit between their teeth.
They would have been level within a minute, had Gary Irvine not managed a spectacular block to deny Boyd, throwing his body in front of the cross-goal effort to divert it wide.
It looked like the leveller was about to arrive on 66 minutes, with substitute Derek Lyle barely missing a tantalising cross to the back post. Boyd then had a shot blocked, with another sub, Alan Cook, unable to put the rebound on target effort.
Soon after a Cameron effort was deflected past the right post.
In the game’s dying embers, skipper Scott Brown would get another crack at levelling the match, his volley from 16 yards flying over the bar.
Peterhead boss Jim McInally felt his team’s display in the opening 45 minutes was lacking intensity and was untidy, leaving them with a mountain to climb.
He said: “I’m disappointed at our first half performance, which was nowhere near good enough and we were deservedly behind at half-time.
“I haven’t seen us play as poorly as that in a long time.
“In the second half we played well, at a high tempo, played some good stuff and the only criticism I’ve got is we didn’t work the goalkeeper enough.
“Our goalkeeper’s not seen the ball in the second half, but why do we wait until we’re behind to play with that intensity?
“This league is ruthless and if you play as poorly as we did in the first half you’ll suffer.”
The boss added: “When you see how we can play in the second half, how we pinned them back – we just didn’t do well enough with our final cross, our final ball let us down a wee bit and we never worked the goalkeeper enough.”
