TWENTY nine years outwith the Scottish top flight has fostered a fatalism amongst the long-suffering Morton support but Jim Duffy is building a team which the people of Inverclyde can believe in. The 57-year-old approved of the way his hard-working and talented group of players racked up another victory against Raith Rovers on Saturday, three points which moved them five behind Dundee United in the race for second with a game in hand. Duffy has been over the course far too often to start taking anything for granted in January, but a team capable of reaching the League Cup semi-final and compiling a ten-month unbeaten run at Cappielow will be worthy of respect in the play-offs if they can consolidate their current position.
The former Dundee and Clyde manager's recruitment since pretty much starting from scratch in League One has been something to behold and his latest trick is coaxing some more productivity from Lawrence Shankland. As prolific as this Scotland Under-21 player was for Aberdeen in the youth ranks and last season at St Mirren, few tears were being shed at the Paisley 2021 stadium when it was mutually agreed that he should rip up his season-long loan from Aberdeen and return to Pittodrie last week .
Morton quickly diagnosed that he would be an upgrade to their depleted front line, though, and Shankland certainly wasn't casting a backward glance at the club's Renfrewshire rivals after the close range header on debut which was his first league goal since a screamer for St Mirren against Morton last April. The move went through so quickly that he couldn't even get in touch with Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes, who was on a flight to Dubai at the time, but a promotion quest is always more fun than a relegation struggle.
"Most importantly, I am obviously delighted to start off with a win," said Shankland, whose contract at Aberdeen expires in the summer. "The boys did well and it was great to get nearly 90 minutes under my belt and obviously getting the goal was a bonus as well.
"It was exactly what I was expecting from my new team-mates to be honest," added a striker who dovetailed with Gary Oliver, an old acquaintance from the youth ranks at Rangers. "They are a tough team who can dig in and play a bit of football as well. Mark Russell's ball for my goal shows that they have got a bit of quality in terms of service at the end of it and hopefully it can lead to more goals. Winning today takes us closer to United but we are not really looking at that.
"Obviously with St Mirren, they haven't ended up where we all wanted to be. It wasn't a great time to be honest, it was tough. So it is good to get a break away from that. Winning games is what you want to be doing so it will be good for me to be sitting in the house with a smile on my face for a change.
"Obviously it is frustrating when you have not been getting the goals that you want. We weren't scoring many, and there weren't many chances being created, you just need to make sure you keep getting into positions and when the service comes like it did today I was there for score."
Shankland got an inadvertant assist on the game's first goal, making sufficient nuisance of himself in the six yard box for Ross Forbes' cross to elude Kevin Cuthbert and end up in the corner. While this wasn't the outcome Raith had been hoping for, Cuthbert's opposite number Derek Gaston also had to work hard for his clean sheet, making fine saves from Ryan Hardie and Mark Stewart.
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Morton 2
Forbes 27, Shankland 67
Raith Rovers 0
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