DUMBARTON manager Stevie Farrell insists that Ally Love did not intend to harm Rangers youngster Alex Lowry after the promising playmaker was on the receiving end of a crunching tackle from the winger last night.

The Sons faced the Ibrox colts side in the SPFL Trust trophy as David McCallum’s team secured a 7-0 victory over their League Two counterparts but the contest was marred by an ugly challenge from Love that resulted in Lowry being stretchered off towards the end of the match.

The Dumbarton player slid in from behind with a two-footed lunge that sent the Scotland Under-21 internationalist flying into the air but his manager insists that there was no intent on Love’s behalf to harm Lowry as he outlined his hope that the 19-year-old makes a speedy recovery.

“First and foremost, my thoughts go to Alex Lowry,” Farrell said. “I have been in touch with [Rangers academy chief] Craig Mulholland today and I know that Alex is going for a scan tomorrow.

“Everyone at the football club, Ally included, wish Alex well in that. He is a young player, a great talent in the game, and everyone in Scottish football wants to see him fit and well.

“I know Ally Love and in no way did he go out to cause any harm to Alex Lowry.

“It wasn’t a good tackle, Ally will be the first to admit that, but you get those tackles up and down the leagues every Saturday.

“I am not trying to justify it in any way – it was a bad challenge. I have made those types of challenges myself and players have got up and walked from them. In this case, unfortunately, Alex didn’t.

“I’ve watched it back numerous times on video and I actually think – and I am no medical professional – that it’s probably the way Alex has landed that hasn’t helped either. He has went up in the air and then landed awkwardly, so it looks as if that may have contributed to the injury as well.”

Clips of the incident have been circulated on social media in the last 24 hours, prompting a furious response from some Rangers supporters.

Love has since received death threats and while Farrell says that fans are right to look after their own, he believes that some of the abusive messages sent to his player have been well beyond the pale.

“I’m not surprised [by the reaction] at all,” he added. “We have been here before – that’s what happens when you play for a big club. Alex Lowry is a promising young player at a big club and fans are obviously going to protect their own. I don’t have an issue with that.

“Fans are always going to protect their own and their own players – likewise, Dumbarton fans are probably fighting Ally’s corner. I’m not a big social media user.

“I don’t have any issue with that but when it starts to cross the divide – at any level, at any club – about getting death threats, breaking people’s windows, hurting people’s family; there is just no place for that in football.

“That is not acceptable and I think any reasonable independent person would suggest that that’s not acceptable either. Anybody in football would say that.

“The biggest concern here from everybody – from Rangers, from Dumbarton, from Ally Love, from Stevie Farrell – is that hopefully the results of Alex Lowry’s scan are good and whatever those results are, that Alex makes a speedy recovery.

“That’s genuine from everybody at the club. I think that’s genuine from every real football person in Scotland. The aftermath and the fall-out is what it is.

“I was speaking to Ally in the aftermath and he knows it wasn’t the best challenge but he certainly didn’t go out to hurt Alex in any way.”