JAI Quitongo reckons he should have hit the net against Beith Juniors on Saturday — and so does his dad.

Former pro Jose Quitongo was in attendance at Bellsdale Park to witness his son’s Ton side smash the Ayrshire junior outfit 6-0, but he was disappointed not to see his son bag a goal during the rout.

And Jai believes his ‘critical’ dad was right to be irked, because he says it was the ideal opportunity to add to his collection of goals this season.

Speaking to the Tele, Jai said: “My dad is always quite critical of me and he thought I should’ve played better. My dad and mum thought I should’ve played better. They thought I should’ve scored.

“I wanted to score because I thought it would’ve been a good game for strikers to get a goal. I thought maybe I tried a bit too hard to score, but the main thing is we’re through to the next round against Falkirk, which won’t be an easy game.

“If I’m not going to score, I’d want my strike partner Gary [Oliver] to score as well. I thought maybe he should’ve took his chances but it’s a good result in the end.

"But I just need to keep working hard. Hopefully I’m selected to play against Dunfermline on Saturday which will be a tough game.

"We’ve got quite a few tough games coming up so we need to keep working hard, getting results and playing good football.”

Quitongo admits he was relieved to see Ross Forbes’ opener hit the back of the net — after some early Beith pressure had him thinking it might not be Ton’s 
day.

He said: “We’ve been winning games, and in a game like that I think it can always go both ways. In the first 10 minutes they had a lot of corners and I thought it might be one of those days. But we persisted, kept attacking and we got a good 6-0 win in the end.”

The 19-year-old insists the form Morton are currently in is no surprise because they have such a talented tight-knit dressing room. And he is delighted that results have improved since the beginning of the season, because it’s no more than they deserve.

He said: “The atmosphere around the training ground, all the boys spirits are lifted. At the start of the season we maybe never started off as well as we’d have thought, but we’ve stuck together and I think we’re starting to get decent results.

“And with the fans getting behind everyone, it’s good for everyone associated with the club.”

But as far as Saturday’s cup clash goes, Quitongo is glad to get it out of the way — because he wouldn’t like to play at Bellsdale every week.

He laughed: “That was my first taste of junior football and I wouldn’t like to play it! I think I would need bigger shin pads and bulk up a wee bit more!”