Morton’s teen sensation Jai Quitongo may be grabbing the headlines and drawing the attention of scouts with his red-hot form, but there’s no chance of this young man of getting carried away.

And despite his acrobatic celebrations after scoring, his footballing family always ensure he keeps his feet on the ground.

Quitongo’s dad of course is former Hearts, Hamilton and St Mirren winger Jose, and his younger brother Rico is on the books of Accies too.

Jai was able to get one up on his sibling when he scored the winner in last month’s Betfred Cup clash at the Superseal Stadium that set up tonight’s quarter-final showdown with Dundee United.

He is having a rather harder time though persuading his old man that he is ready to surpass his achievements in the game, but his upbringing in football has left him well-equipped to handle the attention now coming his way.

“We have a few discussions about it and I’ll tell him ‘I’m better than you, I’m faster than you, I’m stronger than you’,” laughed Quitongo.

“You can imagine what my dad is like, he gets out the old tapes and shows me a few of them.

“We play in different positions, he was a winger and I’m a striker, but we have a bit of banter and we can turn the house upside down when we do!

“I saw things like the papers coming to my house because of my dad, so I just get on with it and it’s a part of life for everybody who plays football. You just need to be able to handle it.

“Before the Hamilton game my wee brother was saying to me there was no way I was going to score and stuff like that and giving me a bit of stick. I had the last laugh in the end.

“I was delighted to score. Obviously as it was a Premiership team playing against a Championship team we had to be at the top of our game, but we beat them 2-1.

“Now we have Dundee United and even though they might have got relegated, they still have good players and we’ll have to be at our very best.

“We’ve played well when we’re the underdogs, and after the win on Saturday our morale is up.”

Quitongo has repaid manager Jim Duffy’s faith in him by netting on four occasions so far this season, including Saturday’s winner against Dunfermline to earn his side’s first league victory this term.

While he admits to being flattered by the failed Doncaster Rovers bid to secure his services in the summer, he is happy for now just to be playing regularly for Morton.

“I was aware of it and obviously I’m over the moon to be linked with teams like that, but I never really thought about it too much,” he said.

“I just want to be playing week-in, week-out and see where that can take me.

“I don’t know what the situation was, but I’m happy to be at Morton and I’ll continue to try my best for the club.

“Some people go down south and end up progressing and even playing in the Premier League, but for others they can fail to settle.

“Your main aim is to play every week and hopefully I can continue to do that at Morton.”