DAVID Hopkin felt his side missed a great opportunity to pull off a cup shock against St Johnstone after they were punished for passing up a string of gilt-edged chances.

The Morton gaffer believes that his team were well worth a win against the Saints in the Scottish Cup fourth-round tie.

But he was left ruing missed chances in the first half and early in the second as the Ton looked to get back level after Callum Booth’s spectacular strike, above, put Saints in front early on.

He told the Tele: “It’s a game that we could’ve won, but when you play teams at this level, you’ve got to take your chances like they did.

“I don’t think Callum Booth will ever hit a ball with his right foot like that again and that gives them a great start, but after that we had four or five great chances to get ourselves back into the game.

“We knew it was going to be tough, after the delay of half-time, but in that 15-minute spell after half-time we’ve got to score but we didn’t and we got punished.

“As much as it was a great header, we’ve worked on it all week.

“We can’t give Murray Davidson, probably the best header of a ball in Scotland, a free header in the box from a corner.

“That made it difficult for us going on because we had to chase the game. I’m proud of my players but when you’ve got that kind of quality at a higher level, you only need two or three chances and they’ve taken them.

“If we got an equaliser, the tide could’ve turned in our favour, because goals change games.

“When we came out in the second half and we had two or three chances that we really had to score, and if it goes 1-1 then it’s a different game.

“Obviously the wind gets taken out of our sails after the corner has gone in and then it’s one punt up the park that’s done us.

“Stevie May has been allowed to run through one-on-one with the ‘keeper from halfway and that just shouldn’t be happening.”

Hopkin was encouraged by the performance of his players and says they can take plenty of positives from the tie despite the 3-0 defeat.

He said: “I’m proud of the players. I thought we put in a great performance. But I said to them after the game, you’re only going to get two or three chances at this level and we managed to create five or six but you really need to take one of them.

“I think we’re getting better, we had two or three very young players playing against a good Premiership side, who have played at a higher level and are maybe stronger and fitter.

“We passed the ball and we created chances and as I said, on another day we could’ve been coming out of the game with a different outcome.

“If you’re playing a team at our own level, you maybe take two or three of those chances, but there are positives that we can take from the game.”