Paul sticks out in the cup

Is Paul McMullan saving himself for silverware glory?

Paul McMullan continued his habit of scoring only in cup ties with his 30th minute opener against Hamilton Accies on Saturday in the fifth round William Hill Scottish Cup tie. Having scored at Brechin, Buckie and Alloa his strike v Hamilton has attracted a fair amount of dressing room banter. There was nothing tongue in cheek as he celebrated his goal:-

"The boys are giving me a bit of stick, I have not scored any goals in the league but every time a cup tie comes around I seem to find the net. I hope to keep that going on Tuesday night and hopefully we can get into the next round."

Paul admitted that he was annoyed with himself for not netting again in the second half and putting his side into a position that would have almost certainly have seen his team through to the quarter finals of the William Hill Scottish Cup.

"I could have finished the tie when right through, I just got caught in a couple of minds and just made a mess of it to be honest. It was a good save from the keeper, their keeper has kept them in the game and effectively kept them in the tie."

Paul celebrated his first goal at East End Park in the far right corner but he was undeterred by the lack of proximity to any home fans, he added:-

"I am just quite happy to score at any end to be honest the way my goalscoring form has been this season. It is nice to get the first one at home and I hope that I can score a few more."

The replay comes up pretty fast on Tuesday night and taking back to The Superseal Stadium, Hamilton now have to be installed as favourites to progress. The quarter final draw which paired the winners away to Rangers of course creates the added incentive, Paul continued:-

"We know that we are a good team and we fancied our chances today. In front of the home crowd we thought that we could do a job. Hopefully we can get through to the next round in the replay."

As a Celtic player on loan to Dunfermline until the end of this season, Paul has to be pleased with the possibility of a trip to Ibrox and there is relief that it was not the other half of the Old Firm that the draw set them up to play since he thinks that he would be excluded from playing against his club.

"I am not 100% sure, it is not something I have looked up or asked any questions about. If it had come about I would have been asking questions and hoping to play."

Paul was given the manager`s vote of confidence with his selection to face Accies a week after a poor performance at the Falkirk Stadium. He felt that no one got pass marks in that game:-

"Nobody could look at themselves and say that they were great. That was one thing, the manager stuck with the majority of us who played last week and told us to go and prove that we are better than that and that`s what we did."

So it`s on to the Superseali Stadium on Tuesday night and although the East End Park surface was as good as it possibly could have been Paul reckons that the artificial surface at Hamilton will be no disadvantage:-

"You get an even run of the ball. On Saturday the pitch was alright at the start but as it wore on it cut up and got messy. The groundsman have been working on it every day and has done as good a job as he could."

Related Stories

• Dunfermlne 1 Hamilton Accies 1
• William Hill Scottish Cup draw
• Managers Post Hamilton
• Business Club 10k Handover