MOTHERWELL were the club to hand him his chance in first-team football - but Morton defender Darragh O’Connor says there will be no room for niceties when his former employers come to town for Friday's big Scottish Cup tie.

The towering Irish defender was plucked from the youth set-up at Leicester City in 2021 by then-Steelmen boss Graham Alexander.

But his move north didn't work out as an early season injury saw his game time reduced to a minimum before a loan spell at Queen of the South.

Now the former Fir Park youngster is set to come up against his old side for the first time since joining Morton two summers ago.

He told the Tele: “I enjoyed my time at Motherwell but I won’t lie in saying that things didn’t pan out in the way that I’d have wanted them to.

“Now I’m a Greenock Morton player. My full focus is on Morton at the minute and there’s no need for any extra emotions or things like that ahead of the tie.

“It’s just eleven players against eleven. Even if some people might think I have a point to prove, I don’t. It’s just a game of football.

“It will be a very tough game against a Premiership side who have in the top division for so long for a reason.

“But we’re going into it with a lot of confidence off the back of our result against Dunfermline.

“Hopefully we do our best and pull off what would be a very big result for the club.”

O’Connor is still in dreamland after he doubled his scoring tally from last season on Saturday with a brace against the Pars.

Greenock Telegraph:

The big centre back says it was good to repay the favour to clinical strike duo Robbie Muirhead and George Oakley, who help Ton set their defensive stall out.

He told the Tele: “George and Robbie have scored a lot of goals for us this season and the midfield have been contributing too.

“They’ve also been helping us out with the defensive side of things, to keep clean sheets by helping up defend from the front as a unit.

“If we can return the favour by chipping in with a few goals ourselves as defenders then that can only be a good thing for the team as a whole.”