ALEXANDER King believes his friendly rivalry with Lewis Strapp has helped him make the breakthrough in the Morton first team.

The 17-year-old has started the last three of Ton's Championship matches, as his impressive form has kept last season's young player of the year out of Dougie Imrie's first team in recent weeks.

King says his close bond on and off the park with the 22-year-old is helping bring out the best in his game as they both target the left-back spot.

He told the Tele: "I feel that I am playing well definitely.

"I wanted to be a part of the first team, so now that I have that position, I just need to try and keep it.

"Lewis Strapp and I push each other, because we are quite close on and off the park.

"I push him and he pushes me, it is only going to get the better out of the both of us.

"I am just going to keep my head down, keep working hard and hopefully I can keep the spot."

The full-back admits it was frustrating not being able to have the opportunity to bounce back from their defeat to Ayr United after Saturday's fixture away at Queen's Park was postponed as a mark of respect following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

King hopes they are able to put the loss against the Honest Men behind them when they host bottom side Arbroath this weekend.

He said: "It’s definitely frustrating not to be able to bounce back.

"The boys thought that we did enough to probably get the three points against Ayr, but it just didn’t work out in our favour.

"We had a bit of momentum in terms of playing well - then obviously the next game was cancelled.

"The cancellation gave us a chance to work on things.

"We are obviously gutted that we weren’t playing, because the boys are playing well just now, but we're just not quite getting the end product. We weren’t happy but we’ll just move on to the next one.

"The chat has definitely been about trying to bounce back.

"Usually when we get beat, we bounce back with a good performance or a win.

"Hopefully we can do that this weekend."

King made has first team debut in the league the last time the Ton faced Dick Campbell’s side at Gayfield Park on the final day of last season.

He believes the visitors will still be a threat when they travel to Greenock despite their slow start to the new campaign.

He added: "That was my first league start last season.

"I feel like it has gone well since that day and I have kicked on from there.

"There is always a threat with every team in the league, it is pretty close.

"With all the teams there is not much between them, so it won’t be an easy game.

"We are definitely looking forward to a game and we are hoping to get the three points at home."