Johnston says Duffy’s men can show Pars the way

Allan Johnston believes “amazing” Morton are a shining example for his own Dunfermline side.

The teams meet tomorrow at Cappielow as the home side bid to keep up the pressure on league leaders Hibs and the Pars seek to remove themselves from the relegation scrap.

Johnston believes Morton have been the ‘surprise packages’ of this season, in just their second year back in the Championship after relegation to League One in 2014.

And he reckons Jim Duffy’s squad’s push for the title shows just what Dunfermline – promoted back to the second tier last summer – can achieve if they can keep themselves in the division this term.

He said: “They’ve been one of the surprise packages this season and they’ve done really, really well.

“In the first season they were up they were probably a bit like ourselves and wanted to consolidate a wee bit and they had a good season.

“In the second season they’ve kicked on again.

“I’m sure they will still be looking at trying to catch Hibs. It’s incredible how well they’ve done this year.

“They’re definitely an example for ourselves. I think they’ve over-achieved this season, they’ve done amazingly.”

Dunfermline could have eased relegation fears with a win over Ayr United last weekend but instead allowed their visitors to drag them back into the mix with a 1-0 defeat.

Now just five points above bottom side St Mirren, the Pars, in sixth, know they still desperately need points.

Johnston added: “It’s incredible how tight the league is. Every game is meaningful, so there’s no team going to take their foot off the gas.

“Everybody’s going to have hard games between now and the end of the season.

“We’ve probably made life difficult for ourselves, by getting too many draws when we could quite easily have won a lot of the games.

“Now we’ve got to show that fighting spirit and make sure we’ve got better quality than the teams round about us.

“We could have been miles ahead and catching Dundee United. It’s unbelievable.

“We’ve got to make sure we do what we do best and get wins – and then it doesn’t matter what other teams do.”