St Johnstone’s Alan Mannus has tasted a lot of success in cup competitions and he admits he is hungry for more starting tonight against Queen’s Park.
The big keeper has six Irish domestic cup medals to his name and he is eager to add another from Scotland, especially as his only previous cup experience in this country ended in extra-time agony.
Mannus was handed his St Johnstone debut between the sticks against Hearts on February 14 in last season’s fifth-round Scottish Cup replay.
The teams were all square at the end of 90 minutes with the Jambos going through to the next round when Marius Zaliukas popped up with the winner with just seconds of extra-time remaining.
Now, the goalie is hoping to finally put that disappointment behind him and help Saints go all the way to Hampden for the Scottish Communities League Cup final.
The Republic of Ireland international said: ”I’ve got mixed experiences from cup ties in the past. When I was at Linfield and Shamrock Rovers, I was at two clubs who were expected to win everything so there was always pressure on to get to finals.
”I won a lot of medals over there but you never lose the hunger to win more. It’s not going to be an SPL medal. We are unlikely to ever do that with Celtic being so dominant but we have to aim to finish as high as we can in the league and go for the cup.
”But my only experience in cup ties in Scotland was that game against Hearts. It was my first start for St Johnstone so I’ll never forget it especially as we were 30 seconds away from going through.
”Hearts scored deep into injury time and then got another in extra time to put us out. I had waited a long time to get my first game over six months but it ended in disappointment.
”Moments like that drive you on and I’ll have three motivations to beat Queen’s Park. I always want to win football matches, I want to keep our winning run going and I want to see how far we can go in this tournament.
”It won’t be easy to win this cup though and we have to give Queen’s Park a lot of respect.”
Tonight’s opponents may be in the Third Division but Saints boss Steve Lomas has stressed his side will be taking nothing for granted, especially as Queen’s Park have already knocked out SPL Dundee.
He said: ”This game is all about getting the right result and being in the quarter-finals of the cup. Queen’s Park are going really well and had a fantastic victory at Elgin at the weekend which isn’t an easy place to go to.
”So they will be coming here on a high and if our players are 10% off with their mentality levels, we will come unstuck, it is as simple as that.
”Queen’s will be coming here full of confidence having knocked out Dundee so we will give them the respect they are due and make sure our attitude is spot on.”
Callum Davidson is an injury doubt for St Johnstone.
Meanwhile, Queen’s Park manager Gardner Speirs has a selection headache of the right kind to solve against Saints.
The Spiders won 4-0 at Elgin at the weekend and their squad from that game has been bolstered by the return of Jamie Brough and Ian Watt from work commitments.
Speirs said: ”All I will be asking the players to do is to play as well as they can and see where that takes us.”