With Motherwell you never know but it would take a monumental disaster to deny us a place in the quarter finals. We are a full time SPL side – albeit a struggling one! – playing on a huge pitch against part-time amateurs. Unless we win, and win reasonably comfortably, there will be no excuses accepted and Maurice Malpas will edge another fraction closer to departing the hot seat. But we don't want to think like that! The third round draw has been incredibly kind to us as Queen's Park were probably our first choice team to meet. Not only should we win the game but we have a great opportunity to build on our improvement against Hearts by playing some nice football and scoring a few goals. Queen's shocked Aberdeen in the last round – lightning probably won't strike twice.
Calum Elliot may return after missing the Hearts game although it is not certain if Hearts will allow him to play in a cup competition. Brian McLean will be out after picking up a knee injury so we may continue with the bizarre sight of Paterson lining up at centre half again. More logically we will move Reynolds in to partner Craigan and allow Stepover to play at left full back. Other than that it would be surprising if we made any changes. Foran will have to play further up front alongside McDonald but after arguably our best performance of the season it would be foolish to change things for the sake of doing so. Everyone who played on Sunday was committed and organised – if we can get the same effort then we should pick up a moral boosting win to go into Saturday's league game at Tannadice.