The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)

Shaughness­y vows to rough up old pal

- Iroache@thecourier.co.uk

looking forward to giving his old pal a hard time.

He said of MacLean: “He has done well, hasn’t he? I didn’t think he would play as big a role as he has played so far this season.

“I trained and played with him for however many years and you know what to expect from Macca. I don’t imagine there will be much said between us before the game.

“I will just go, play against him and chat afterwards. Whoever it is who plays up frontforHe­artsitwill­beagoodcha­llenge.

“That is what you want. These are the games you want to be playing in.

“We had a good start to the season up to the weekend at Rangers (Saints lost 5-1). Then it was hard work against Celtic in the cup, as you would expect.

“They are always going to have most of the ball and work you hard defensivel­y.

“I suppose it was a good warm-up in a way and hopefully now we can push on for Saturday. We need to get back to winning ways though. That’s the aim.”

Shaughness­y turned into a striker as Saints tried to save the cup-tie after Leigh Griffiths’ 84th-minute strike for Celtic.

He had a great chance in the dying seconds to take it to extra-time.

He said: “We were still in it at the end and were close, just not close enough.

“We probably rode our luck a little bit and our keeper Zander Clark made some good saves. I had a chance but I didn’t even know the goalie had come out.”

 ??  ?? Steven MacLean celebrates after scoring Hearts’ first goal in the cup win over Motherwell.
Steven MacLean celebrates after scoring Hearts’ first goal in the cup win over Motherwell.

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