St Johnstone captain Jason Kerr believes it might take months for their Betfred Cup achievement to sink in.
But the defender is fully aware of the importance of securing a top-six Scottish Premiership place and will quickly shift his focus to Wednesday’s trip to Hamilton.
Kerr became only the second St Johnstone skipper to lift a major trophy when the Perth side beat Livingston at Hampden on Sunday.
“A few people have said that and it doesn’t quite feel real,” the 24-year-old said.
“It’s a massive honour for me and I think it will maybe sink in a couple of months down the line. But right now it just feels so surreal. I feel like it went so quick, from the first whistle until now.
“But I’m buzzing and really honoured that I could lift the trophy. I’m proud for the family as well, they are all really happy and had a good day.”
Kerr returned to his home in Edinburgh straight after the final while some of his team-mates travelled back to Perth on the coach.
Celebrations were obviously restricted because of the coronavirus pandemic but Kerr insists they would have been curtailed anyway because of their league demands.
“It was hard with the Covid regulations,” Kerr said. “There’s not much celebrations you can have because you are meant to be social-distancing from everyone when you get off the pitch.
“And we have a game on Wednesday so we wanted to recover for that because we really want to push for top six. We have a good chance if we get maximum points from our final three league games.
“It was a good celebration but there was nothing too much.
“The boys had their mind set on the game on Wednesday. The gaffer said it before the final as well, if we do win there can’t be too much celebration. We had to recover and get our sleep.
“We are all focused on getting in the top six. We have a lot of ambition to do well in the league.”
Saints are six points behind sixth-placed St Mirren ahead of their game in hand on Wednesday.
“I feel we have a lot of momentum right now,” Kerr said. “Especially in the last two months, we have played really well against top teams and got a lot of points.
“We are playing good football as well so hopefully this momentum helps us and we go and win our next three games and give us a good chance of getting in the top six.
“It’s always a tough game against Hamilton, especially at their place. They will be fighting to stay up and get as many points as they can. We are expecting a really tough game but we will be right up for it.
“And we will be confident as well. We have a lot of depth in the squad as well.”
