Kevin van Veen admits he watched Motherwell's Scottish Cup fourth round clash through the cracks in his fingers from the bench, but was happy to climb off it and inspire his side to a 2-1 win over Greenock Morton.
Van Veen replaced Kaiyne Woolery in 60 minutes with the score at 0-0 and immediately gave the Steelmen more of an attacking edge.
Robbie Muirhead put the Championship side ahead with a fine strike on the cusp of half-time in extra-time, and that presented Motherwell with an uphill battle.
But when new signing Ross Tierney was pulled down inside the box by Michael Ledger in the second half of extra-time, Van Veen immediately grabbed the ball and smashed it home to equalise with his eighth goal of the season.
But the Dutchman admits he was relieved to see Liam Donnelly send a rocket into the top left corner to win the game and earn Motherwell a home tie against Aberdeen in the fifth round.
Van Veen said: "I was pleased with my performance. I was watching on the bench and it was a bit of a tough watch, to be honest.
"We weren't bad, but we weren't particularly really good.
"I think we need to do better, and be better, but at the end of the day we're in the next round, that's all that matters, and we made it a little bit hard for ourselves, to be honest.
"But I'm very happy that we were on the winning side, because it's important to win games.
"I think we all know in the dressing room ourselves that it has to be better than that, but the positive is that we're into the next round and we won this game.
"It was a relief when Liam Donnelly scored the goal, otherwise it would have gone to penalties and it's always a bit nerve-wracking! It was a very good strike by Donnelly, who's got that in his locker, and I'm very happy that it went in.
"We needed that, to be honest, somebody to come up with something. It was quite still during the game, and I think it was a great strike.
"I wouldn't say it was very deserved, maybe, because they fought well, all respect to them.
"They did their best to make it as hard as possible, but it's good that we went through and I'm happy to get the win."
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