Confident St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin fears nobody in Scottish Cup quarter-finals

St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin said his team would fear nobody in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup.

The Paisley side defeated League Two leaders Kelty Hearts 4-0 on Saturday with goals from Alex Greive, Jordan Jones and a double from Greg Kiltie to book their place in Monday night’s draw.

Goodwin admitted he hoped to avoid Celtic or Rangers in the last eight but said, at home especially, his team would approach the tie with confidence regardless of the opposition.

He said: “Obviously you want to avoid the big boys without being disrespectful to anyone else left in the competition.

“But we’ve beaten Celtic and Rangers last season so we shouldn’t fear anybody. Another home draw would be lovely.

“I think this group of staff and players are capable of great things. But we can’t get too carried away.

“We can’t think for one minute we have achieved anything because we haven’t. We won’t get complacent. We’ll keep showing that level of professionalism that we showed against Kelty and if we do that we’ll have a good chance of fulfilling our ambitions which are a place in the top six and getting back to Hampden.”

Jones scored his first St Mirren goal since securing a loan move from Wigan on deadline day.

And Goodwin was delighted with the former Rangers winger’s overall contribution.

He added: “The goal of the day will no doubt go to Jordan Jones. Since he has come in he has been a breath of fresh air.

“He carries a real attacking threat and every time he gets the ball good things happen. But I don’t think it would be fair to single out any individual performance.

“The most pleasing aspect was to win so convincingly as I would have taken a scrappy 1-0 before a ball was kicked.”

St Mirren welcomed Conor McCarthy back to action in the second half for his first game since November.

The Irishman sustained ligament damage against Livingston that required surgery but came through his comeback match without any problems.

Goodwin added: “The game plan was always to get Conor half an hour to get him back out there and used to moving his legs again.

“He did well and came through the game quite comfortably thankfully.”