MORTON youngster Lewis McGrattan admits his first goal of the season was a bittersweet moment - but he hopes it's enough to put him in first-team contention.

With Ton two goals behind, the midfielder came off the bench against Arbroath with seven minutes of normal time to play and gave his side a lifeline with an injury-time goal to half the deficit.

While it proved to be too little too late for Dougie Imrie's side to rescue a point, McGrattan is hopeful his late strike will give his manager something to think about as he looks to get more first-team action under his belt.

He told the Tele: "It is always nice to score but circumstances kind of take the enjoyment away.

"It doesn’t really mean much now, maybe at the end of the season looking back it at it is maybe nice then but not so much now.

"Hopefully the goal will put me in the manager's thoughts to get a start.

"Any chance I get, I go on and try and make an impact, so hopefully that is enough.

"The gaffer just told me as I came on to try and stay high, create and hit shots if I could."

The youth academy graduate says Morton didn't do enough to take anything from the game and he believes the Red Lichties were worthy winners.

He said: "The boys were gutted in the changing room.

"I thought it would be a chance to bounce back after the Ayr defeat, so it was disappointing that we never took anything.

"I don’t think we created enough. Arbroath probably deserved to win the game.

"We wanted to bounce back, so on Saturday everyone was buzzing for the game and to put things right and get the three points - but it wasn’t to be."

The 21-year-old admits they failed to reach the standards which saw them narrowly lose to Ayr United in their previous outing earlier this month.

McGrattan believes they were unlucky not to take all three points against the Honest Men - but he insists they could have no complaints about the outcome on Saturday against Dick Campbell’s side.

He said: "It was probably the complete opposite of the Ayr United game.

"I felt in the Ayr game we deserved to win, whereas on Saturday I don’t feel like we created much at all, so that was disappointing for us."

Morton face the Honest Men for the second time this month on Thursday in the SPFL Trust Trophy third round.

McGrattan believes having a midweek game will work in Ton's favour as they aim to bounce back having suffered back-to-back defeats in the Championship.

He added: "It is good that the cup game is on Thursday as it's a good chance for us to bounce back straight away and get through to the next round of the cup.

"We showed last time that we are more than a match for Ayr, so we will just be looking to do the same again and hopefully get through."