Conway returns to his happiest hunting ground
Forward hopes to make more history at Hampden
CRAIG CONWAY is uncertain whether he will still be at St Johnstone next season. But if the 36-year-old was to depart McDiarmid Park this summer there would be no better way to bow out than being crowned a Scottish Cup winner for the second time in his career.
The former Dundee United man clinched the famous old trophy back in 2010 when the Tannadice club defeated Ross County at Hampden.
Conway was named man of the match that day after netting twice and the national stadium has once again been a happy hunting ground for the former Scotland international this season.
The attacker was part of Callum Davidson’s starting XI when Saints lifted the League Cup earlier this campaign and he also found the back of the net in a 3-0 rout of Hibernian in the semi-finals.
Conway and his team-mates take on St Mirren in the last four of the Scottish Cup today and the one-time Blackburn and Cardiff man hopes to play his part once again by getting
St Mirren v St Johnstone
Hampden, 2.15pm. Premier/BBC One Scotland his team to yet another major final.
“I really enjoy playing at Hampden. I’ve got so many happy memories, it’s one of those grounds I feel really good at,” he explained. “I’ve had some great days there and I’m looking forward to doing it again. More of the same would be brilliant.
“I haven’t spoken to the club about staying. We’ll see what happens at the end of the season. I just want to enjoy the games we’ve got left. I’ve had some niggles so I’m focused on getting back on the pitch and playing.
“I’m slightly different to a lot of the lads, I’m not stressed about it. I’ll speak to the manager when the time’s right. I want to play on for as long as I can. I feel good body-wise. Once you’re retired, you’re retired.”
Callum Davidson is on the shortlist for manager of the year after winning the League
Cup and guiding St Johnstone to a top-six finish in the Scottish Premiership.
Conway had great confidence in his manager when he moved to McDiarmid Park last summer, but even he admits that this season has been beyond his wildest expectations.
He said: “If you had asked me at the start of the season I probably wouldn’t have expected to be in this situation. I would have fancied us to go on a good run but to have one cup in the bag and to be in the semi-final of another, I wouldn’t have believed you.
“At the end of the day we are there and we deserve to be there. I’m just enjoying every minute of it really.
“When I left Blackburn I felt as if I wanted to go and play as many games as I could.
“I didn’t rule out getting another trophy or a promotion.
I haven’t spoken to the club about staying. We’ll see what happens at the end of the season
I’m not saying I completely ruled it out but I thought the chances were getting slimmer and slimmer.
“If we did win the Scottish Cup it would be unbelievable. In terms of how difficult a task it is to win a cup double.
“Taking everything into consideration, my age and things like that, it would definitely be right up there.”
Hailing his manager, Conway said: “I think he is right up there with those who I have worked with in the past. He is a young manager but I can’t speak highly enough of him.
“My circumstances are different. I’m older, I live down south and with me he has been brilliant. He has let me see family. I have kids and being away from them is tough.
“From a footballing point of view he has been excellent. You just have to look at how young our squad is and the task he has had with the pandemic. He has been first class.
“On the pitch it speaks for itself for what we have achieved as a team. Not only the cups, but the tricky time we had earlier in the season we have gone on to finish in the top six. We are sitting in fifth at the minute and it speaks volumes for him.”
It hasn’t been all plain sailing for Saints and Davidson though and it is easy to forget that they were lingering at the foot of the Scottish Premiership through October and November.
Conway feels his gaffer deserves major credit for pulling through this bad run and for sticking by the formation he has consistently used over the course of the campaign.
He added: “The biggest compliment you can pay the manager is that he didn’t panic when things weren’t going well. It would have been easy to revert back or try something drastically different when it wasn’t working.
“There were only two or three games – Livi away, Motherwell away – when I can say that it didn’t work. He’s stuck with it and the lads have totally bought into it. We’re now reaping the rewards for that.
“I’ve worked under a lot of different managers over the years and there have been times when I’ve been in a struggling team, which has resulted in it petering out or the manager losing his job.
“That was never the case with Callum though. We were never so bad that he was in danger of that. The lads knew that if we kept playing like that, goals would come and they did.”