04-05-2025
Ex-Morton star can offer Airdrie play-off advice after dumping Diamonds
Lewis Strapp was part of a 'Ton side that beat Airdrie in 2021
Defender Lewis Strapp is ideally placed to give Airdrie team-mates advice on how to survive a Championship play-off scrap – after dumping the Diamonds with Morton in 2021.
The Greenock side went 1-0 up at Airdrie in the first leg, with a Robbie Muirhead header eight minutes into stoppage time, but then produced a 'miracle' to thump the Diamonds 3-0 at Cappielow.
Strapp, who joined from Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho in Finland in January, after leaving Morton last summer, reckons similar performances will be needed in their semi-final at Stenhousemuir on Tuesday and Airdrie on Saturday.
He said: 'Tuesday night is massive for us, the first one is away from home, so you want to go there, put a good marker down and you would imagine there would be people here watching from whoever we're going to be playing.
'I hope they saw that we're going to be at it, causing problems. Lewis McGregor came in, made a nuisance of himself. I was at centre-half, Craig Watson at right-back, and if they could see what we did, hopefully we should turn up on Tuesday.
'At Morton we had the play-offs and actually played Airdrie.
'It's not a nice feeling, but we've got to put that to the back of our minds and focus on these games.
'You obviously want to go into them with full focus and everybody ready to go.
'We're excited, we've got a good group here of young boys, so hopefully that will put us in good stead.
'I think when you go up a division its a wee bit different from the Championship.
'We've got four games, and some boys are thinking about holidays and things like that, so the older boys have got to keep the younger boys' heads on the line.
'I've been in there before, it's not nice, but we've got a good group.'
Strapp reckons Airdrie have hit a bit of form since a raft of injuries cleared up, and hopes that puts them in a good position this week.
He said: 'I wasn't here for the first six months, but since Christmas, if you look at the form it's good.
'I know before it was like nine boys training on a Friday before a game on the Saturday, and just throwing boys in anywhere to play, get boys on the pitch and get the game going.
'We have to forget about that and just think about what we've done in the second part of the season.
'We go into these games potentially full strength for the first time in a while.
'There's not so many boys injured just now in the physio room, we're trying to keep everybody out there, and what was said on Friday was don't be diving into silly challenges, we've got massive games coming up, and I think to a man we did well.'
Airdrie ended their league season with a 1-0 defeat to Ayr United on Friday night, with Ben Dempsey scoring with a back-post header two minutes from the interval.
Strapp said: 'There were a few changes in the team to get some boys some minutes, and rest some boys that are probably going to start on Tuesday night.
'We went out there and we did cause them problems, I think everybody saw that, and on a different day we maybe could have gone in 2-0 or 1-0 up at half-time.
'Even in the second half when the subs came on we were still at it, creating chances, but we were maybe a wee bit more direct than what we were doing, but some boys were playing out of position.
'It was a good performance, just lacking the killer finish to get a goal.
'Ayr are a good team, we thought they were going to rest a few players but they had some of the boys who are going to be starting on Tuesday.'
