ST JOHNSTONE’s run to League Cup glory earlier this year may have been a touch fortuitous, given that the Perth side avoided facing either half of the Old Firm on their way to lifting the trophy for the first time in their history. However, the players know they will receive no such luxuries if they want to pull off an historic double this term.
Callum Davidson’s men host Clyde on Saturday evening, where they will be hoping to take advantage of their opponents’ frantic fixture schedule of late. Remarkably, this afternoon’s cup tie will be the Bully Wee’s eighth outing this month already. It’s the sort of calendar that gives you a stitch just looking at it.
Naturally, Saints will be expected to defeat their League One opponents and progress to the next round, where a tie with either Celtic or Rangers awaits.
Club captain Jason Kerr admits knowing what lies in store for today’s victors takes away some of the magic of the cup but after becoming the first player in the history of the club to lift the League Cup, he has designs on finishing the campaign with another winner’s medal draped around his neck – but the centre-half insists that he and his team-mates remain fully-focused on the task at hand.
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“I don’t envy Clyde playing Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday,” he said. “I think it would be hard for any full-time professional player, never mind a part-time team. They’ll be playing games and going to their job so it’s going to be really tough for them.
“We’re going to be as professional as we can. They’re a good team and I’ve played against them a few times when I was on loan. They’ll get full respect and if we play like we have the full season we’ll do well.
“With the two rounds getting drawn at the same time it takes away some of the excitement if you were to progress. We know it would be Rangers or Celtic.
“The last two games we’ve played them we’ve played well. We were unlucky not to get a result against Celtic at home and at Celtic Park. We played well against Rangers at Ibrox too. I’d feel like we’d have a good enough team in the dressing room to beat them.
“[The League Cup win] fills us with a lot of confidence. To win that was a massive achievement for us. We’ve had a taste and we want to do it again.”
Kerr will be taking nothing for granted this afternoon. A previous loan spell at East Fife gave the defender a grounding in the men’s game at a young age and as a result, he is well-versed in the demands of football in Scotland’s lower leagues.
He has particularly happy memories of facing the Broadwood club – Kerr faced the same opponents when East Fife clinched the League Two title in 2015/16 – but also credits his time at Hearts, where he came through the youth ranks, with giving him that all-important experience of crunch fixtures at boy’s level.
“I’ve got a bad memory as it is,” Kerr conceded when asked for specific recollections about the Bully Wee, “but we actually won the league at Clyde in 2016 with East Fife. I’ve gone up against them a right few times.
“I’ve also been on the other side of this situation — playing for East Fife against Premiership sides — so I know what it’s like. They’ll have a game-plan to stop us playing and we’ll need to be at our best to exploit what we want to do.
“I think those younger days — playing boys’ club, competing for trophies — can give you experience. I’ve been in a lot of boys’ club finals and won a few, and lost a few as well. I will take that into today, as I do with all my football experiences.
“The toughest game was one we lost. We scored in the last minute of extra-time to take it to penalties and ended up losing on penalties. That was especially tough to take because I scored the goal to take it to penalties.
“Luckily enough, I captained St Johnstone to the Betfred Cup a few years later — so it worked out okay in the end!”
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