Queen of the South manager Allan Johnston has set his sights on the SPFL Trust Trophy final after clinching a quarter-final berth against Morton.
The Doonhamers disposed of Partick Thistle 2-0 on Friday night with two fine goals from Lee Connelly and substitute Ally
Roy.
Johnston said: “It’s not one of the big competitions, but it’s important to get on a good run and win games.
“And as a player you don’t get to many finals in your career so we will give it our best shot.
“But there is a long way to go and we just have to make sure we win our next game and keep the run going.”
He paid tribute to both sets of fans for generating a cup-tie atmosphere on the night and added: “It’s brilliant when you have both sides and fans having a go at each other and you can see by the reaction at the end how much it meant to everyone.
“Lee’s goal was unbelievable. He is capable of that and he is getting more and more confident. Lee is a massive player for us and it’s great when you see someone like him creating space for others.
“He has the creativity that we are looking for while he is also popping up with special goals at the moment and that was some strike.
“He gets into good areas and people don’t see how much he does for the team. He works incredibly hard for the team with assists and his work-rate.
“That’s five goals in six games so he is on fire at the moment.”
Johnston also had words of praise for several other Queens players and said: “We had made a few changes and we got Ally Roy coming on as a substitute and scoring while Ruari Paton did well for us – and young Aidan Fitzpatrick did well after not playing a lot of football.
“And our keeper Sol Brynn did well again for us. You can see he is a big unit and if you are a player running through on goal and you see him in goal you know he is going to be hard to beat.
“And even in training it’s difficult for the boys to beat him.
“That’s two clean sheets in a row for the team and that is important after our record had not been as good as we’d hoped
early.
“But now it is important that we make this a hard place to come for teams.
“We certainly played a lot better in the second half against Thistle.”
