Morton goal hero Thomas O’Ware has singled out his side’s togetherness and teamwork as the main reasons behind the club reaching their first semi-final of a major competition in 35 years.

Jim Duffy’s men overcame Dundee United at Cappielow on Tuesday night, with Jai Quitongo’s opener and O’Ware’s goal enough to see them through.

The defender captained his side on the night, and he says it was a huge honour to lead the side on such a historic occasion for the club.

“It’s great to get to Hampden as such a small club, it’s amazing,” O’Ware said.

“It was good to get the goal, but Tuesday night was all about the team and everybody played their part. That’s the reason we’re going to Hampden.

“It’s massive for us and you saw the celebrations that went on after the game. It’s been a long time and obviously the fans, the chairman and a lot of other people connected to the club have been waiting on it.

“It’s good to be part of the team that has done it.

“Obviously being two up at half-time we thought it was too good to be true, then we came out and conceded a sloppy goal.

“Everybody was a wee bit nervous in the last half-hour, but we managed to hold on and the atmosphere in the changing room afterwards was brilliant.”

The triumph over United rounded off a great few days for Morton, as they also earned their first league win of the season against Dunfermline last Saturday.

O’Ware hopes that will silence some murmurings of discontent that had been coming from the support towards manager Jim Duffy.

“I think it’s laughable if people are questioning the manager,” he said. “I’ve said from day one that he doesn’t get enough credit.

“He doesn’t have a massive budget and he can’t spend money the way that Dunfermline or Dundee United are, and we’ve beaten those teams in the last two games.

“We’re punching above our weight, so I don’t understand why people say that sort of stuff.

“He’s steadied the club, brought us back into the Championship and we finished fifth last year. We’ll be competing to try and push into that top four again this year.

“He got into two quarter-finals in the cups last year and now we’re in the semi-final this season, so his record speaks for itself.”

As so often happens with cup draws, Morton will now face the same opponent in quick succession in the league, when they travel to Tannadice tomorrow.

O’Ware isn’t taking anything for granted after defeating Ray McKinnon’s men, warning that they will be fired up to make amends to their own supporters.

The motivation for the Morton players is to now perform well in the league so that they can’t be left out when the semi-final of the Betfred Cup rolls around.

“They made five changes to their team on Tuesday night, so I’m guessing they will make changes again on Saturday,” he said.

“They won’t be happy with how they played, so they will come out with a point to prove.

“It’s going to be a hard game for us, so we have to try to stick to what we’re good at and try and do what we did the other night again.

“As players we won’t be focusing on the semi-final, every game from now to then is a chance to show the manager that you deserve to be in that team.

“All of the boys will be fighting for their places.”