MORTON’S mouthwatering Betfred Cup draw has young midfielder Reece Lyon straining at the leash to get the season started.

The Ton will face off against Renfrewshire rivals St Mirren for the first time in two years, before meeting Partick Thistle.

Ray McKinnon, who controversially quit the club to take charge of Falkirk in 2018, will come up against his former side with his League Two outfit Queen’s Park, along with former Ton players Bob McHugh, Michael Doyle, Peter Grant and Lee Kilday.

Group G is completed by Ton’s Championship counterparts Queen of the South.
Lyon hopes fans will be allowed back at matches by the time the games are played, particularly the derby.

He told the Tele: “It’s probably the best draw that we could’ve asked for in terms of big big games.

“I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and getting going now.

“This will be my very first Renfrewshire derby.

“It will probably be the biggest game of my career so far if I play in it and it’ll be even better if the fans can be there to add some sort of atmosphere to it.

“It’s such a big game for not only us but Inverclyde too, so I just hope that we will have fans in the stadium.

“You need fans for games like that, even for the Partick and Queen’s Park games too, with the rivalry there between the fans and with everything that’s went on with the likes of Ray McKinnon.

“The crowd make it ten times better and they’ll help us through games like that.
“We just need to see what happens and hope that everything can calm down a bit with the coronavirus.”

The group looks sure to provide a stern examination for the Greenock men but Lyon says that suits him.
He said: “It’s good to have a group with four tough teams.

“We’ve had such a long lay-off, so these games give us something to look forward to — it gets us and the fans going, which is great for everyone involved.”

Lyon hopes that he and his teammates can hit the ground running with another strong showing in the competition after they reached the last 16 in 2019-20.

He said: “We had a good Betfred Cup last season, excluding the Motherwell game, so we’ll be looking to start off strongly again this time around.

“We’ll obviously use the games for fitness and things like that, but we’ll be looking to win every single game and try to top the group and progress.

“You’ve got to go out with that aim no matter who you’re playing — it doesn’t matter if we’re away to St Mirren or whoever, we’ll still look to go and get something.

“It’s a derby, you can’t sit and wait for something to happen, we’ll definitely go to try and get the win.”

The Betfred Cup kicks off on October 6, with the dates of the fixtures and where they will be played still to be confirmed.