Sore one for Watt but Well’s pride is intact

IT says something about Tony Watt that he was willing to play through a significant pain barrier to help his team in an all-or-nothing knockout match. And it reveals plenty about the sense of togetherness in this Motherwell team that the gamble on Watt’s fitness very nearly produced a Scottish Cup comeback for the ages. The centre forward, who said he’d popped a couple of painkillers and volunteered to take the ‘risk’ of playing just days after coming off crutches, insisted he was feeling nothing but pride in his team-mates after Saturday night’s agonising penalty shoot-out loss at Easter Road. Having been 2-0 down with ten minutes remaining, Ricki Lamie’s long-range effort and a powerful Watt header forced extra-time. Hailing the team effort behind the comeback, the former Celtic striker said: ‘That’s just us. That’s Motherwell as a club. Nobody gives us a chance when we’re playing against so-called bigger teams. ‘But we believe in ourselves and that’s enough. We’ve got people behind us who believe in us, so you can’t ask for much more. The boys showed good commitment. ‘I don’t know if gutted is the word. I was proud of the boys. We showed a lot of commitment and character to get back into the game. ‘It shows that we’ve got a real spirit between us, we should be doing that a lot more often. ‘Since I’ve been out, the boys have been brilliant and picked up great results. We were so close to Hampden but, unfortunately, we need to pack up and go again.’ Watt (pictured right celebrating his goal with Declan Gallagher) hadn’t played in over a month before coming off the bench against Hibs — having been all but ruled out of contention by manager Graham Alexander just 24 hours earlier. Explaining how some over-the-counter analgesics and a can-do attitude had confounded expectations, the 27-year-old revealed: ‘I’d been on crutches a week ago for ten days. I spoke to the physio and, to be fair, he was good with me. He was being really cautious. ‘I told him I was happy to risk it. It’s been sore. It’s still sore. I trained yesterday for 45 minutes or an hour and it was sore. ‘I just took a few paracetamol, strapped it up and got through it. ‘It’s a problem with my heel. I landed on it on the Astroturf and I hurt it. ‘Hopefully I can keep managing it, get through to the summer and rest it. It’s just one of those I’ve not really been able to shake off. ‘I was happy to help the lads. I spoke to the gaffer on Thursday and said, “Look, I’m happy to risk it”. ‘He was good with me. We spoke to the physio and that was it. ‘We got to the quarter-final of the cup and played a very good Hibs team, one of the best Hibs team in years, and lost on penalties. ‘Pens are a lottery. You can’t go and start crying.’