Greg Shields looking for sweetner

"We have had a great cup run getting to the final but we have done nothing yet. It is a great day out but we want to win this one.

Greg Shields sat out the 2004 Scottish Cup Final cup tied after playing in an early round for Kilmarnock against Raith Rovers. Three years ago he was a supporter travelling through for his club's big day with two injured team mates. Greg seriously wondered if his chance would ever come around again.

"I went to the final last time with Scott Wilson and Scott Thomson, we drove through and had a bite to eat and a drink, saw what was happening on the day and what Hampden meant to the fans and how they enjoyed it.

"I've never experienced what it's like before. I had only experienced a cup final as part of a squad. It was good to see what they go through and how they enjoy themselves.  It is just great that we are back three years later involved in a cup final again."

It is easy for Greg to understand how difficult it is for the cup tied Pars players, Tam McManus and Stephen Glass:-

"My sympathy goes out to them. I played in a game three years ago but Tam and Stephen didn't even play. Tam was on the bench against Berwick and Stephen on the bench against Aberdeen; it is an unfair rule that. That is the rules that are laid out, we just have to re-shuffle, we have a few players who are going to do a job."

After coming so close to fighting off relegation, Greg feels it is great that the club has got to a cup final and the financial benefit will certainly help the club's lost income in the First Division. Still reeling from the reality of taking the drop, Stephen Kenny has prepared his team well claims his captain:-

"He has laid out a plan for what he wants this week. I am looking forward to it and so are the rest of the boys. If you can't get yourself up for the cup final there is something wrong."

The memory of the 2006 CIS Insurance cup final when Dunfermline didn't really turn up against Celtic, is still relatively fresh in everyone's mind. The loss through injury, at the eleventh hour, of Noel Hunt put the plans up in the air. Greg recalled:-

"We put Andy Campbell in to play wide left and Freddie played wide right. That put a spanner in the works but this year the manager knows what he wants to do and he has shown before that he is quite kamikaze in the way he plays with the two wingers. OK, Jim O'Brien is cup tied now but this Manager will not let us play like we did the last time. He will definitely be going for it with the players we have got.

"The last two months we have really had quite a settled side. Now players who weren't playing are going to come in and do a job for us. It will be interesting to see what sort of team comes out."

Greg is not one forunderestimating Celtic despite some indifferent results of late. It took the eventual European Champions AC Milan to knock Gordon Strachan's team out of the Champions League at the Quarter Final stage. He warned:-

"That is what we are up against. They were unfortunate to lose that. Then they just wanted to win the league, get that out of the way as soon as possible. Their recent form has not been as good as it has been earlier on in the season, our form is probably better than our form was at the start of the season. It's catch 22 really but Celtic players are big game players - they will definitely be up for it on Saturday so it is up to us to try and match that.

"It has been a cup adventure so far. We have put out some great teams - even the Partick Thistle game, a lot of people thought that was a banana skin when we were drawn against Partick but we won that convincingly. We are the underdogs for this one, it is nothing new.

"We have had a great cup run getting to the final but we have done nothing yet. It is a great day out but we want to win this one. We have to match them all over the pitch. St Johnstone showed that in the semis, they were fantastic and unfortunate not to get a replay or even to go and win that. We will be under pressure against Celtic, they are a good side. Our boys will be thinking this is our last final but at Celtic they will be thinking when's our next final. I am thirty now with only three or four years left in me; it would be nice to go out on a high and put a sweetner on the relegation."