Greenock Morton boss Dougie Imrie believes Heart of Midlothian can count themselves lucky they are in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup.

Hearts will meet Rangers in the last four of the competition after winning 1-0 at Cappielow thanks to Kenneth Vargas' late strike.

Imrie, however, believes it was his side deserving of that place.

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"I stand here extremely proud of the boys," he said. "We went toe-to-toe with a real top Premiership side and they’ll know themselves they’re lucky to be in the semi-finals. We feel it should be us there instead, but we just fell that little bit short. I think if we’d had our main striker in George Oakley available it would have been a different story.

“Craig Gordon’s had to make some big saves at points in the same when we were outstanding.

“I couldn’t have asked any more of my players. They’ve played five games in 17 days, we only had four outfield subs on the bench and we have guys playing with injuries, playing with colds. Their attitude is fantastic."

He added: “Hearts will be thankful to have got away with the win, but now we have to concentrate on nine more huge league games as we look for promotion.

“Cappielow was amazing on the night, it’s what it’s all about – and it gives us an appetite for more occasions like it.”