MICHAEL Doyle believes that whilst Morton might be favourites on paper to cruise past Beith in the Scottish Cup on Saturday they won’t be caught cold by complacency.

The 25-year-old insists Ton won’t slow down against the junior outfit, because they can’t afford to.

He told the Tele: “I know we are put down as favourites because we’re the professional club, but you can’t take anything for granted.

“Just because they’re a junior team doesn’t mean they’re not going to want the ball, they’re not going to press you high. Sometimes in the junior leagues they actually press more and you get less time on the ball. 

“It will be a test for us.”

Doyle was gutted the game was postponed last weekend, but he’s hoping it goes ahead this Saturday, because Ton are almost back at full strength after an injury-laden few months.

He said: “You train all week for the game on a Saturday, and we’re back to having a full squad again. But a month ago we’d have thanked you for a postponement.

“But a lot of the boys are back now and raring to go. We never had the weekend off, the manager had us in on the Saturday training so he’s wanting to keep us sharp until next week.”

Beith will provide a different kind of test than what Ton are used to this coming week, but Doyle maintains that despite the Ayrshire players’ experience at all levels of Scottish football, his youthful team should still have enough about them to KO Beith — and square-off against the waiting Falkirk in the next round.

Doyle added: “In junior teams they always have a lot of players who played at pro-youth and the lower leagues and it maybe hasn’t worked out so they’ve went back to junior, and they’re making a good living and maybe prefer that.

“They’re still very talented football players so we won’t be taking anything for granted. Beith have a back-line who are very experienced, but I’d also say even though our back-four is quite young, they’re also quite experienced.

“We are a young team. I think there’s only four players who are over the age of 25. But I think it’s the old ‘if you’re good enough, you’re old enough’ kind of thing.

“The raw talent we’ve got in our squad kind of shines through and complements each other. And I think if we go into the game professionally, the older guys will tell the younger ones how important it is.”