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Niall "most important thing is being in the hat"
“I’m delighted first and foremost.
“Looking in from the outside I was of course disappointed not to be playing, but the manager pulled me in at half time and he just wanted me to bring a bit of a spark to the game, get on the ball and create chances and thankfully it worked and all went to plan. I made an impact through scoring. Then it was disappointing to concede, but it was an unbelievable strike from Dobbie. I’m delighted to then chip in with a couple of assists so all in all a great day for myself personally and the most important thing is we’re in the next round.
“It just shows that competition for places is strong and it’s down to the manager to pick his team for each game. I’m delighted to have come on and made an impact and hopefully I’m in with a chance of the league game next week.
“I’m older and more experienced now and I’ve been here a long time.
“I’ve played a lot of football and the manager has a lot of trust in me, which he’s shown in me since day one. When I haven’t been playing I’ve just kept myself to myself and kept working hard. I’ve always known I’d get chances and thankfully I’m made an impact today that’s helped us get through to the next round.
“In my time here, we’ve always had flair players and been good at getting the ball wide and getting crosses into the box. There’s always an onus on us to create chances and having the likes of Big Sam in the box he’s more often than not going to get a foot or head to it and thankfully he’s done that today with a couple of goals. It’s always important you make an impact on the pitch and thankfully I did that today.
“As a striker you’re there to score goals and having the likes of Gary, myself and young Connor out wide with Greg Stewart more in the middle; we’ve got great players and great competition. It’s down to yourself to keep impressing and when you’re called upon you have to do as much as you can. Thankfully it’s worked out well for me today.
“I haven’t started the last couple, but thankfully I’ve made that impact today. That’s all I could have done today so personally it’s a great day for myself, but the most important thing is being in the hat for the next round.
“It’s always been important to do well in cup competitions here. Since I’ve been here thankfully we’ve had success but probably the most important thing is getting success in the Scottish Cup. We’ve been to the cup final and a few semi-finals and we want to go that one step further. We know there’s big teams left in the hat and it’s going to be another tough draw whoever it’ll be. We’re there on merit and thankfully we’re in the hat.
“We had a great December in the league and have picked up a few wins since. We’re still in a decent enough position in the league. When you set targets at the start of the season you want to reach cup finals, which we’ve done one already with the League Cup and we want to do the same in the Scottish Cup.
“There’s always motivation and that’s a good thing about being at a big club. The next game’s always a bigger game and they’ve been coming thick and fast. When you’re winning games it’s nice to keep the momentum going and when you lose a game you can’t wait to get going with the next one.
“Thankfully we’ve came away with a win to get us into the next round.”