JIM Duffy is hoping his Morton side are late bloomers in the Championship.

Duffy has pointed to the slow starts to the campaign experienced by Falkirk and Inverness Caley Thistle — before those two clubs picked up a run of form.

And Duffy is hoping that it’s his side’s turn to start picking up more consistent results.

He told Tele Sport: “Inverness started slowly but got better, Falkirk started slowly and got better.

“And there’s been a number of clubs who have been pretty consistent like Livingston and Dundee United, so we have to try to keep improving as we go and add to our points tally.

“And who knows? In six weeks’ time, maybe at the end of February, you can look round and say — where are we here?”

As Duffy prepares his side to go head to head with Dundee United at Tannadice, the Ton gaffer said is not looking at the gap which currently exists between the sides. The Terrors sit in second position, 12 points ahead of seventh placed Ton.

But Duffy said: “I don’t look to the points differential. I have said previously that you need to go on a run of a reasonable number of games, say four or five games, before you start to look at anything beyond that.

“With us, for most of the season, it’s been one game here, one game there. You can’t get too concerned about somebody who is way ahead of you.

“We’ve went up to Tannadice for a variety of games over the last couple of years and performed well but not always, I feel, got the result we merited.

“We have to do that again and we know it’s going to be extremely tough. But we’re not looking at whether it gets us closer or otherwise [to them].

“We’ll go up to Tannadice with a determination to compete and then see if that competitiveness, allied to the ability we have, is going to be good enough to come back with the points.”

In other news there was heartache for Darren Barr’s under-20s side as they exited the SFA Youth Cup, losing 3-1 to Hibs at Easter Road in the quarter-final.

First-half goals from Jamie Gullan, Ryan Porteous and Adam Watson put Hibs in the driving seat at 3-0, before Mitchell Duffy pulled one back late in the second half for the young Ton colts.