MORTON striker Gary Oliver hopes that his impressive midweek display against Inverness can help him become a mainstay in the team.

The 25-year-old excelled in his lone role up front after Ton were reduced to 10 men for an hour of the 2-2 draw.

He feels the performance can act as a launchpad for him moving in to the second half of the season, starting against Arbroath at Cappielow this afternoon.

Oliver told the Tele: “Wednesday night was a great night for me in terms of building my confidence going into the latter part of the season.

“I hope that I can build from it and really kick on.

"I’ve not had the game time that I would’ve liked, but when the team is doing well, like it has been, then you can’t really have any complaints.

“I can understand why they [the coaching staff] haven’t wanted to change things around and just need to take that on the chin and wait for my chance like I did on Wednesday.

"Hopefully I can go on a run now, get some games, some goals and assists.

“There’s nothing worse than when you’re out the team for so many weeks and watching on from the stand.

“It was important for me that when I got my chance that I did well or I could’ve been out of the picture for a while.

“I want to keep myself in the mix because the team has done well recently.

"I wanted to go in and make my mark and give the manager a dilemma about who he’s going to pick in his 11 on a Saturday.”

Oliver is targetting today's game for what would be a crucial victory.

He said: “There aren't a lot of games left now and we need to start turning draws into wins.

“I think we need to go for it today.

“I’m confident in the boys we’ve got in the team, we’re all flying.

“If we can start picking up wins now it will put pressure on the teams above us.

"If you look at the run we’d been on, if we’d have held on to some of those winning positions we’d have been right up there in the league table.

"We've got good players and I think we can go far with this team."