GARY Harkins believes playing in a Morton side with an average age of 24 is helping him stay young as he embarks on his 17th professional season.

Harkins, who netted the winning penalty against Queen’s Park in Tuesday’s shootout victory in the Betfred Cup, is the veteran inside the dressing room at Cappielow this 
season.

And the 32-year-old says he and his team-mates can help each other in different ways.

He said: “I’ve been around the game long enough that I can go into a changing room and it’s quite easy for me. It’s a great group of lads and I’m enjoying it so far, so long may it continue.

“I’m on my 17th season whilst most of the boys are on three or four, so it’s a young dressing room but it’s good to be in amongst it because it makes you feel a bit younger! 

“It’s a good thing for everyone, hopefully I can help them and they can help me.”

The ex-Dundee and Ayr United playmaker finally made his home bow against the Spiders in Tuesday night’s 2-2 draw, and admits both the result and performance fell short of what was expected.

But with a trickier tie to come against Premiership outfit Motherwell on Saturday, Harkins chose to take the positives from the midweek encounter — which was the battling side of Ton to come back from 2-0 down to grab a draw before grabbing a bonus point with a shootout win.

He said: “It wasn’t really good enough. 

“We probably should’ve scored a couple in the first half and then I’ve given away a foul where I probably shouldn’t have dived in, even if I didn’t think it was a foul at the time.

“They’ve scored from it, a free header, and their second goal is just as bad. 

“But it was a good fightback, we’ve kept going and I thought wee Tiff [Scott Tiffoney] did well when he came on and we got a couple of goals out of it.

“I think in the first half we’ve created a few chances and should probably have scored a few. 

“But we didn’t and we paid for it in the second half. 

“Thankfully we’ve fought back, got a bonus point and now it’s on to a big game on Saturday against Motherwell.

“At 2-0 down, we had 15 minutes left and I think we were just thinking ‘try and get one and see how you go from there’, we managed to do that, get a few corners and we’ve managed to score from one.

“It was really good to play at Cappielow for the first time as a Morton player. I’d obviously rather have got a better result but it was nice to play and be on everybody’s side for a change.

“I’ve enjoyed a bit of abuse from supporters in the past but thankfully it’s different now and hopefully I can do my bit for them and the team this year.”