MORTON manager Jim Duffy is expecting an entertaining League Cup tie tomorrow as his side take on Berwick Rangers at Cappielow.

Last season, Duffy’s Clyde team won two, drew one, and lost one of their four meetings with the Borderers, as well as finishing one place above them in League Two.

The attractive style of play instilled by Berwick player-manager Colin Cameron left a lasting impression on the Ton boss.

And he anticipates an open match in which both sets of players will take the game to each other when his current club host the English outfit in tomorrow’s first round clash.

He told the Tele: “I know Berwick Rangers from being in the same division as them last year and they’re an excellent football side and probably one of the best footballing sides in League Two.

“They’re not a kick-and-rush team by any stretch of the imagination; they’ll get the ball down and pass it through the midfield. They have real good invention at set-pieces.

“I went to see them against Queen’s Park last week and they have some experience mixed with talented young players.

“Colin Cameron is there as player-manager, and he’s still a very good player. Lee Currie’s a terrific player, Darren Lavery’s a terrific player with a really good touch and scored a lot of goals last year.

“So I can’t see them sitting in; there’s no point in them doing that. It’s a one-off game and will be played to a finish.

“If it’s the Scottish Cup it’s different because there’s the potential for a replay. But in the League Cup it’s decided on the day.

“Like any football match, as the game goes on and if the scores are even, people sometimes don’t want to lose it late on and will try to take it into extra-time.

“I really can’t see that tomorrow. They are a side who like to go forward and like to be productive, so I’d be surprised if they just came and sat in. But how they play is really not my concern, that’s up to Colin Cameron. My concern is how we play and to see how we can impose ourselves on the opposition.” Duffy feels it is another tie that will ask questions of a young Ton squad that is both stretched by injuries and still in the process of bedding in.

However, he is also optimistic their positive attitude and enthusiastic and committed approach to the game can see them through the early stages of their development as a team.

He added: “It will be another tough match because we’re not where we hope to be by any stretch of the imagination.

“We are still looking at the playing squad and still trying to find the best system, in terms of what we feel will be most effective and what suits us.

“Having so many bumps and bruises over the last few weeks, particularly in the striking department, we’ve had to patch it up a little bit, and we’ll probably have to continue to do that against Berwick.

“When Andy Barrowman went off last week that gave us a problem because we had to rejig the team. I couldn’t have imagined too many younger Morton teams have played over the years.

“Mark Russell’s 18, Cammy O’Neil’s 17, Jordan Allan, David McNeil and Mikey Miller are 19, Tom O’Ware and Ricki Lamie are 21, and Lee Kilday’s 22. After Andy was subbed, Stefan Milojevic was our oldest outfield player at 23. And it’s difficult to have such a young team playing.

“When you run out and have the jersey on, people don’t think: ‘Oh, that’s a really young team.’ They just think: ‘That’s a Morton team.’ You have the expectations of being a Morton player.

“So the boys are going to have to learn quickly that that’s part and parcel of being a footballer, particularly down at Cappielow, and to stand up and be counted.

“To be fair, they did do that last week. In the first half against Spartans, I thought we played well and scored a terrific goal but made some basic errors and got a wee bit frantic in the second half.

“We just need to be a little bit more composed. It would have been ideal to have an old head to just calm them down and take the sting out of the game a couple of times. We just didn’t have that. What we have got at this moment in time is a real determined attitude and work ethic, and until such times as everything settles down that will be important. But we have to get there quickly.

“At some other clubs you might have a couple of months to settle in and see how it goes, but we know the expectation level here is to win. It will be the same against Berwick.”