The Scotsman

Kerr: Surreal Betfred Cup success will take months to sink in

- By GAVIN MCCAFFERTY

St Johnstone captain Jason Kerr believes it might take months for their Betfred Cup achievemen­t to sink in.

But the defender is fully aware of the importance of securing a top-six Scottish Premiershi­p place and will quickly shift his focus to tonight's trip to Hamilton.

Kerr became only the second St Johnstone skipper to lift a major trophy when the Perth side beat Livingston at Hampden on Sunday. "A few people have said that and it doesn't quite feel real," the 24-yearold said.

"It's a massive honour for me andithinki­twillmaybe­sinkin a couple of months down the line. But right now it just feels so surreal. I feel like it went so quick, from the first whistle until now.

"But I'm buzzing and really honoured that I could lift the trophy. I'm proud for the family as well, they are all really happy and had a good day."

Kerr returned to his home in Edinburgh straight after the final while some of his team

mates travelled back to Perth on the coach.

Celebratio­ns were obviously restricted because of the coronaviru­s pandemic but Kerr insists they would have been curtailed anyway because of their league demands.

"It was hard with the Covid regulation­s," Kerr said. "There's not much celebratio­ns you can have because you are meant to be social-distancing from everyone when you get off the pitch.

"And we have a game on Wednesday so we wanted to recover for that because we really want to push for top six. It was a good celebratio­n but there was nothing too much. The boys had their mind set on the game on Wednesday. The gaffer said it before the final as well, if we do win there can't be too much celebratio­n. We had to recover and get our sleep.”

Saints are six points behind sixth-placed St Mirren ahead of their game in hand tonight.

"I feel we have a lot of momentum right now," Kerr said. "Especially in the last two months, we have played really well against top teams and got a lot of points. We are playing good football as well so hopefully this momentum helpsusand­wegoandwin­our next three games and give us a good chance of getting in the top six.”

 ??  ?? 0 Jason Kerr: Saints captain was ‘honoured’ to lift trophy
0 Jason Kerr: Saints captain was ‘honoured’ to lift trophy

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