Creetown boss Martin McCaulay admits he’s getting concerned with how many goals his side is conceding.

The Castle Cary Park side has now shipped nine goals in three games after Saturday’s South of Scotland Challenge Cup clash with Mid Annandale finished 5-5, with the Lockerbie side winning 3-1 on penalties.

McCaulay said: “We shouldn’t be conceding five goals to any team and it’s a wee bit concerning that in the past three games we’ve conceded nine goals.

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“I had call offs on Saturday morning which isn’t easy as I have to reshuffle the team shape wise and personnel wise after you prepare your team for the week ahead

“It happened against Saints when we dropped points and it happened again on Saturday and we’ve exited the cup.”

The sides were tied at 1-1 when each had a man sent off - Creetown’s Tyler Rennie and Mids’ Connor Graham seeing red.

Creetown retook the lead but conceded an equaliser when they were temporarily down to nine men after one of their defenders’ boots burst.

Mids looked to be heading through after going 4-2 up but Creetown struck twice late on.

McCaulay’s men then went 5-4 up in extra-time but Mids fought back to equalise in the dying seconds before winning the shoot out.

McCaulay said: “This team somehow finds a way back into games – we were two goals down with five minutes to go again and got the two goals they needed to force extra-time.

“We were on top, Mids were flat on their feet, we were creating chance after chance. After the made it 4-2 we had to go for it, the boys got a wee lift of energy and pulled themselves back into it.

“The first half of extra-time it was one way traffic, we got the goal we deserved to go 5-4 up.

“The second half definitely wasn’t what I asked them to do as I asked them to keep playing the same way with the same intensity. They just seemed to retreat and sit deeper and deeper.

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“With 10 seconds to go they got a throw in, we half cleared it, every outfield player is in our box and the boy has hit it through everyone into the back of the net.

“Penalties is just a lottery and it’s disappointing as I expected us to get through to the next round.”

It’s back to league business for Creetown this week and McCaulay knows his players need to tighten up against high flying Nithsdale Wanderers.

He said: “The boys know if we make any mistakes this week we’ll be punished again. They have Sean McKenzie up front but they’ve got other players that can hurt you too like Steven Degnan.

“We definitely need to tighten up at the back, stop making these mistakes and stop teams creating chances against us.

“If we do it again on Saturday we’ll be punished due to the attacking threat Nithsdale offer.”