LEWIS Strapp wants to emulate his friend and old youth academy team-mate Reece Lyon after seeing the midfielder star for Morton.

The pair, both 19, grew up together in the same side in the Cappielow club’s academy, playing alongside each other for the under-20s.

Strapp, inset, broke through into the first team before Lyon, making his debut back in 2016 when he was just 17-years-old.

The youngster had loan moves to Elgin City and Annan Athletic in recent years to build up his first-team experience. In the meantime Lyon was given his Ton debut last season, making a strong start to life in the first team and making 20 appearances, scoring on two occasions.

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Strapp, who signed a new one-year extension to stay at Morton this week, says he is happy to see one of his youth team pals making a breakthrough, as well as some of the club’s other younger players.

He told the Tele: “I’m buzzing for Reece. What a start he’s had with Morton, and he’s kicked on which is good, Lewis McGrattan as well.

“You just need that confidence sometimes.

“You can get one bad game and your confidence can still be high, rather than just coming in once.”

The left-back had a tougher task trying to claim a first team spot with Morton last term, after breaking his toe at the start of the campaign, which saw him sidelined for several months.

Then-manager Ray McKinnon drafted in Rory McKeown as a replacement to cover him.

With Jack Iredale there as well, it meant there was a lot of competition for the one left-back slot, and Strapp was eventually loaned out to Annan Athletic.

But he’s thankful last season worked out the way it did, with Strapp featuring regularly for the Galabankies as they just missed out on promotion, losing to Clyde in the League One play-off final.

He added: “It’s a bit different for me as there were three left-backs for one spot, whereas Reece’s position, centre-mid, there were three of them playing in one game at times.

“Most of the season we played three at the back. Reece is a good pal of mine and I was thrilled for him while I was enjoying my time at Annan.”

Strapp was keen to stay on under new manager David Hopkin and hopes to get his chance to breakthrough this season.

The teenager has played under Hopkin before previously at the club, when he was the development team manager back in 2013.

The 19-year-old recalled a tough training session after getting a day off from school.

He added: “I’ve spoken to him and met him before. It was when I was about 15 and I came up to play for the under-20s at the time.

“I came up and I had one training session. I went in full-time, I think I got the day off school.

“I remember training being quite high intensity-wise.

“You could see from his time at Livi, they scored a lot of late goals.”