Ben Parkinson happy to keep his ‘all the way’ claim going ahead of Falkirk’s derby semi-final tie.

Ben Parkinson got some stick from his Falkirk team-mates when he said that Bairns could “go all the way” in the Scottish Cup after knocking out Hearts in the fourth round.

And the former Newcastle United forward, 21, hasn’t changed his tune ahead of this Saturday’s semi-final clash against rivals Dunfermline. He’s happy to double down on that claim – saying that having a bit of “arrogance” goes a long way in football.

“Arrogance as a word is probably seen by most as a bad term, it has negative connotations that come with it,” he said ahead of this weekend’s Hampden tie. “But for me, it is all about self belief. It is that confidence that you are going to win. Whether you do or not is a different thing. You have to believe in yourself and you can’t go too far wrong if you have that confidence.

“Obviously at the time when I said it, I was being a little bit tongue in cheek. But you don’t go into a cup competition with any other mindset than it being that you can win it and go all the way. It was a bit of an off the cuff comment. But I did believe what I said. You have to go into games thinking that you can win.

“I genuinely believed what I said. I think the other boys believed what I said too - they maybe just didn’t want to come out and say that like I did! We have proven already that we can beat big teams and we did that against Hearts. Saturday is another big game for us."

The striker scored Falkirk’s goal at Tynecastle back in January. He also netted the crucial penalty in the shoot-out to send John McGlynn’s side through. It looked like he was ready to nail down the starting No 9 spot. But a frustrating injury halted that, and it looked like his Falkirk season could have been over before it really got started.

Ben Parkinson brushed off injury woes

Parkinson added: “After the game against Hearts at Tynecastle, I got injured the following Friday. I needed an operation so it was looking a bit doom and gloom. But I always had targeted a potential semi-final as the one to be back for, and luckily things have progressed quicker than I maybe first expected. I’ve been back involved now for the two weeks prior to this one so hopefully everything goes swimmingly this week.

"We had played Stenny and managed to get United at home in the quarter-finals. So I knew that we had a good chance.

"I was hoping the boys would do the job and get past them. It was a real target for me. It was a good motivator to push on that little bit harder.”

The Geordie is one of the newer faces in the changing room, and he admits that he didn’t know too much about the rivalry between both clubs until it was explained to him – and others – how much it means to the Falkirk fans.

"I probably didn’t understand just what it meant,” Parkinson said.

“And even now, it probably doesn’t strike home just as much as it does with the other boys who have been here for a while.

"But I get it. You have to understand what the fans feel and I know just how fierce the rivalry is. It is almost like the Old Firm with less numbers!”