Phillip Cancar hopes he’s done enough to warrant being in the Lions starting line-up when they take on Rangers in their Premiership opener on Saturday.
The Aussie ace came on as an early substitute in the Premier Sports Cup win over Kelty Hearts and put in a man of the match performance.
The 21-year-old was bundled over inside the box on 11 minutes with Sean Kelly duly converting the penalty before he bagged his first goal for the club in the closing stages in the 2-0 win.
Cancar, who was a sixth minute replacement at left-back for the injured Cristian Montano after the Colombian sustained a head knock, admitted games against the Glasgow giants were a large part of the attraction of a move to Scotland.
He said: “Those are the type of games as a kid you dream of. A full stadium playing against big clubs like Celtic and Rangers. We’re all buzzing and can’t wait. We all want to play in this game.
“We scored two and kept a clean sheet, that’s the main thing. The penalty and the goal, that’s just football.
“I’m more happy that we won to be honest and I was able to play. We all fight for our position and minutes on the park, that’s what’s good about this club.
“It’s good that we’re through. We did it a little bit the hard way but we learn. We kept fighting and I think that’s the main thing.”
The ex-Western Sydney Wanderers youngster is part of a growing number of Aussies in the Premiership, something he says has helped settle him into life in Scotland.
He commented: “It’s a bit different here. The accent’s certainly different, I’m still learning that.
“And when you guys had extreme temperature, it reminded of me of home. That was just a normal day for me. The boys are telling me it’s going to get colder so I’m excited for that.
“One of my good friends has signed for St Mirren - Keanu Baccus. All us Aussie boys are excited to be here. Cammy Devlin is killing it, Nathaniel Atkinson is with the Socceroos. There’s a lot of us here and we all stay in touch with each other, which helps. It’s a very good league to be part of.
“Obviously you’ve got Ange Postecoglou at Celtic. He’s very good. Everywhere he’s been, he’s won something.
“It’s a dream of mine to play under him being an Aussie boy. We’ll see what happens in the future.”
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