Ton boss Duffy feels ticked off when Sons are dismissed
MORTON manager Jim Duffy admits he gets annoyed when people tell him that his side are guaranteed to reach the Scottish Cup quarter-final.
Ton host Championship rivals Dumbarton in the fifth round today and Duffy is bracing himself for anther typically hard-fought encounter having only picked up two victories from their last six meetings with the Sons.
Promotion hopefuls Morton are favourites to progress against their part-time counterparts but Duffy insists he is paying no attention to those who are writing Stevie Aitken’s side off.
Duffy said: “We’re playing a team in the same division who have been notoriously difficult for us to play against in the last couple of years.
“I probably get a wee bit annoyed when people j ust dismiss them and say, ‘You’re playing Dumbarton, you’ll win’ – that baffles me. They have a tremendous team spirit and determination and we have to make sure we match that.
“The teams know each other so well and it’s always difficult to come up with something that might give you an advantage.
“You can’t take anything for granted and they will be equally determined as we are to get in the quarter-finals.”
Morton lost out to Rangers at this stage of the competition last year, and to Celtic in the quarterfinals two years ago.
Duffy admits his players would love to be in the cup spotlight once more. He added: “Once you start to get to the latter stages of a tournament everyone starts to get excited. The Scottish Cup is still held in high regard.
“We’ve done okay over recent years and we want to try and continue that. We’ve managed to pretty well. We’ve come up against some big clubs and it’s been great for the club revenuewise and the players. They look forward to these types of games but we can only think about that if we beat Dumbarton.”
Meanwhile, Dumbarton manager Stevie Aitken admits an important week for the Sons began with him spending last night near the Welsh border.
Aitken made the 270-mile trip back from Oswestry with assistant manager Ian Durrant this morning ahead of next weekend’s Irn-Bru Cup semi-final to take in The New Saints’ game against Bangor City at Park Hall stadium.
Aitken’s focus will be on this afternoon’s game but admits the coming week is an exciting period for the club.
Aitken said: “We have a lot to look forward to with these two games. We’ve had a terrific first half to the season, the league campaign has stuttered of late but there are reasons for that.
“The players have been great and we’ve got a lot to be excited about. The Scottish Cup always brings that excitement and we also have the Irn-Bru Cup next weekend. I was down watching TNS on Friday night. It’s a busy time but you have to do it as a manager because we’ve got that semi-final to prepare for.
“It’s a four-and-a-half hour drive but you need to make those sacrifices and we don’t leave any stone unturned.”
Aitken admits beating league rivals Morton and landing a lucrative quarter-final tie would be huge for Dumbarton.
He added: “For any Championship side to get to the quarter-finals would be a great achievement. Financially for us it would be huge. But we know it will be a tough game.”