GARY Oliver admits Morton fans had every right to blast their performance on Saturday — and he has vowed to kick on in the league to give them something to cheer about.

The Ton striker returned from a two-month spell out in the Ton’s 2-1 defeat to East Fife at the weekend, after breaking his collarbone against Peterhead in the Scottish Cup back in November.

The striker had an opportunity to equalise late on in the tie, flashing a shot wide in the dying moments of the game.

The loss saw Morton’s Scottish Cup journey end at the fourth round stage, completing disappointing cup campaigns in all competitions this season.

Morton were knocked out of the group stage of the Betfred Cup at the start of the season, and were dumped out of the Irn-Bru Cup by Dumbarton in the first round.

The former Hearts player says the Ton now have to improve in the league to give the fans something to cheer about, and added they were well within their rights to voice their disapproval about the result on Saturday.

He told the Tele: “The fans have got their opinion and fair play to them, they’ve travelled up there to see us and we’ve not been good enough. You need to take what you 
get.

“That’s probably the worst feeling we’ve had in this squad after that loss on Saturday. We were really down after the game but the football goes on. 

“We need to try and pick ourselves back up and try and kick on with the league.

“The Scottish Cup is a big thing for the club, so it was really disappointing to get knocked out of it.

“It’s a great day out for the fans and everyone involved with the club if you can get a big game, but it’s not to be this year and it’s our fault.

“Those are the best days of your career, when 30 or 40,000 come to games, those are the ones you want to be playing in and it’s gutting we can’t do it this year. We’ve been gutted at training this week.

“We should have done better. I don’t think we played badly, I just think we should have played better than we did.

“They had two chances and scored two goals, so we just need to take it on the chin. We feel as bad as everyone else after that loss.

“We’ve brought it on ourselves and we need to improve in the league now to give the fans something to cheer about.”

The 23-year-old has been working hard to get himself back fully fit again, and while admitting he’s still some way off being fully match fit, he was pleased to get back on the pitch again after his spell on the sidelines.

He added: “Monday was my first day back doing full training. I’ve not done much recently. I’ve been working on getting my arm stronger. A lot of it is in my head, when I’m going into a tackle trying to protect my arm, so I need to get over that mental barrier.

“It was horrendous, I hate being injured but these things happen. I just need to try and get back stronger.

“The last few weeks I’ve been training really hard with the sports scientist Mark [Farrell]. He’s been good to help me get back fit, and it’s basically been like another pre-season for me. It’s been a hard few weeks.”