LAWRENCE Shankland hopes his clinching goal against Raith Rovers on Saturday is just the start of what he can achieve at Morton. The 21-year-old Glaswegian played the first six months of the season on-loan from Aberdeen at St Mirren without scoring a single league goal but put all that frustration behind him with the close-range header from a Mark Russell cross which helped move the Cappielow side five points behind Dundee United in second with a game in hand. Shankland, who came straight into the first team with Jai Quitongo and Kudus Oyenuga out injured, said he was delighted to have swapped the pressure of a relegation battle with St Mirren for a promotion chase with their Renfrewshire rivals.

"Most importantly, I am obviously delighted to start off with a win," said Shankland, whose contract at Aberdeen expires in the summer. "The boys did well and it was great to get nearly 90 minutes under my belt and obviously getting the goal was a bonus as well.

"It was exactly what I was expecting from my new team-mates to be honest," he added. "They are a tough team who can dig in and play a bit of football as well. Mark Russell's ball for my goal shows that they have got a bit of quality in terms of service at the end of it and hopefully it can lead to more goals. Winning today takes us closer to United but we are not really looking at that.

"Obviously with St Mirren, they haven't ended up where we all wanted to be. It wasn't a great time to be honest, it is tough. So it is good to get a break away from that. Winning games is what you want to be doing so it will be good for me to be sitting in the house with a smile on my face for a change.

"Obviously it is frustrating when you have not been getting the goals that you want. We weren't scoring many, and there weren't many chances being created, you just need to make sure you keep getting into positions and when the service comes like it did today I was there for score."

Shankland, who also got an inadvertant assist on the game's first goal, making sufficient nuisance of himself in the six yard box for Ross Forbes' cross to elude Kevin Cuthbert and end up in the corner, wasted little time striking a partnership with Gary Oliver, with whom he played briefly as a teenager at Rangers.

"I played with Gary when I was younger, when we were just wee boys, about 12, 13," said Shankland. "Obviously it is hard when you join up with new players because you don't really know how they play but hopefully that will help me settle in quickly."

While his preference would be to get first-team action at Aberdeen, Shankland accepts that - with his contract due to expire this summer - he is effectively in the shop window. "I'm still contracted with Aberdeen and that is where ideally I want to go and score goals," he said. "But for now I just need to concentrate on playing my football, getting as many minutes as I can and trying to improve my game. I am up in the summer, I just need to work hard and put myself out there. If Aberdeen want to give me a new contract then that is fine, but I am just going to concentrate on my football."