MORTON will be centre stage tomorrow as they break from Championship action and make the short trip to Ibrox for their eagerly-awaited League Cup clash against Rangers.

The Greenock men's well-earned reward for making it out of the group stages and into the last 16 is a glamour tie in front of an expected attendance of around 40,000.

It's therefore an occasion which will have a significant money-spinning effect for the Cappielow club.

By reaching this stage of the competition they have already guaranteed over £50,000 in prize money and they will bank a six-figure sum from the ticket receipts, plus broadcast rights income with the clash being televised.

That will go a long way towards making the balance sheet a lot more healthy than it would ordinarily have been at the end of the year, while also allowing a bit of leeway to bolster the squad.

Despite it only being the second round of the competition, to a certain extent this is Ton's cup final and Dougie Imrie and his players will be desperate to make the most of it.

They had a taste of this kind of arena when they met Celtic in the Scottish Cup at the beginning of the year, eventually going down 5-0 despite making a bright start.

Facing up to the Ibrox outfit will obviously be a huge test as well, given the gargantuan gulf in resources between the sides.

Greenock Telegraph:

But they'll nonetheless hope to make it a more competitive affair than their Parkhead outing - where they were four goals down at the break and left playing for pride alone in the second half.

The Greenock men last ventured into Govan in 2017 for a Scottish Cup tie under Jim Duffy and performed with credit as they lost 2-1 after taking the lead.

Rangers are a vastly different proposition now to the dog days of the Mark Warburton era, and that makes the task ahead of Ton considerably more difficult.

One thing Morton will be keen to do is stay solid in the opening stages - something they failed to achieve last weekend against Raith Rovers.

They'd travelled across the Forth buoyed by their opening day win against Ayr but fell just short during a rollercoaster afternoon in Kirkcaldy.

Ton looked half asleep with the way they began the match and could already have been behind by the time they conceded a very sloppy goal inside five minutes.

The big talking point, however, was what followed shortly afterwards - with referee David Munro laughably awarding Rovers a penalty kick following a dive in the box.

Munro had a perfect view of the incident and there can be no excuses for his failure to spot the infringement committed by Raith, who added insult to injury by despatching the spot kick to leave Morton two goals down.

The controversy set the tone for what was a very poor display from the hapless Munro as he lost control of the game, made a series of baffling decisions, displayed diabolical inconsistency and began flashing his yellow card around at the drop of a hat.

To their credit, Morton rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, pulling one back with a fine Robbie Muirhead counter to halve the arrears at the interval.

They forced the hosts to camp in their own half after the break and when Robbie Crawford snapped up an opportunity to restore parity Ton were in the ascendancy with 20 minutes still left.

Greenock Telegraph:

Unfortunately they immediately gifted Ian Murray's men the advantage again thanks to an individual mistake by Kirk Broadfoot which partner Darragh O'Connor proved unable to cover.

For all the controversy around decisions from the officials, defensive frailty was at the heart of Ton's defeat and they have to take it on the chin and do better at the back than this.

The presence of centre back Jack Baird is much-missed as he recovers from his hand injury; the sooner he is back the better.

Ton will have to make do without him again tomorrow and find a way of being more secure, as any repeat of the kind of mistakes they made last weekend could make it a long afternoon against the Light Blues.

Rangers have reconfigured their attack this summer with a whole host of new faces and it's fair to say Michael Beale's new look side are still gelling.

Having lost to Kilmarnock on the opening day they put Livingston to the sword last Saturday with a late onslaught, but the West Lothian outfit did provide a marker or two for Ton on how they might frustrate them and gain a foothold in the game.

They will inevitably have one eye on their huge Champions League qualifying match with PSV in midweek and that will surely mean a bit of squad rotation from Beale.

Regardless of who Rangers field it will be a huge task for Morton and being realistic the main goal for them is to make a fist of the game and give a good account of themselves - anything else would be an incredible bonus.