A FIRST league win of the season for Falkirk was a matter of forensics for Rory Loy.

Two goals on Saturday had given the striker an assurance with which to interpret the evidence of a young side that has retained its sense of purpose, despite losing players of rare prominence this summer. It also allowed him to decline some of the less reliable witness testimony afterwards. This had amounted to countrified claims that it would feel good to score on his home debut and that a striker should often endeavour to get a goal not long after joining a club; his response seeming more like an instruction. "Both my goals came from good anticipation - it's good to get that type of goal," said Loy.

Scrutiny of one's own performance is routine among players but it seemed poignant that the Falkirk striker should begin within an hour of his side defeating Morton, since patience has become a wearying practice. His reputation had strode out ahead when he left Kilmarnock's youth set-up as a teenager and sought maturity at Rangers, but he is still trying to catch up - five years spent on the periphery at Ibrox having come to be regarded as "too long", while a broken leg in his first full season at Carlisle United fractured his progress once more. Now 25, it is arresting that Loy should consider that his career has yet to get started.

His release from Brunton Park this summer freed him to pursue a fresh start but he was encumbered too by the need to avoid further stagnation. Returning to Scotland last month to sign a two-year contract with Falkirk seemed to acknowledge that, given the SPFL Championship club have often been praised for a capacity to accelerate the promotion of young talent and their progressive approach on the pitch.

That has since evolved into an artificial surface but Loy was still able to plant a few seeds of promise at the weekend. His two goals were supplemented by another from Philip Roberts, a teenage striker who is shorn of the dreadlocks which marked him out during a loan spell at Inverness Caledonian Thistle last term, if not the sense of menace which encouraged the Highland side to take him on in the first place.

His partnership with Loy has helped to produce seven goals during their side's opening three games of the campaign but it is the mechanics of their play which is of greater interest to the former Rangers forward.

His preference to drop deep complemented Roberts on Saturday, even if the pair are still just getting to know one another. "Phil is very quick and I like to come short, spin in behind," said Loy, whose side will face Ayr United tomorrow in the second round of the Ramsdens Cup.

"Phil just likes to run in behind and cause the defenders trouble with his pace. I'm sure as the season progresses we will start to click; there are still times just now when there is some miscommunication or when we could be in better positions to help the other out.

"That comes with time but we've picked up two good results and if we've done that without the partnership being in full flow then there are perhaps some good times ahead."

There was an inference that the striker had an example in mind, yet the mention of any sort of target this season was met with a measured response. That seems necessary since he is aware that he has already been sized up against Lyle Taylor, a striker who scored 29 goals for Falkirk last season before moving on to Sheffield United. There is a perception that all strikers will add up their worth with the number of goals they score but Loy was careful to admonish such a suggestion, intending instead to calculate his value using more than just simple arithmetic.

"The way football is, if your name is coming up on Sky Sports every week then it always attracts interest - you could be the worst player in the world but if you are scoring goals then you will always attract attention," added Loy. "I like to give the team more than goals."

Morton were made to settle for just the one at the weekend, though, a modest total understood when the Greenock side showed their working. "I felt a lot of the balls we played went to our full-backs, to our centre-halves, then back to our keeper," said Allan Moore, the Morton manager. "There were a lot of negative passes."