Motherwell star hails 'brilliant' teammates who rose from sickbeds to book Europa Conference League football

Dean Cornelius was delighted to help seal Motherwell's return to the European football stage - especially after illness struck his teammates.

Several of Graham Alexander's men have been hit by a bug which the 'Well boss described as something that was causing 'a bit of a havoc' ahead of Wednesday's crucial Premiership match against Hearts.

They got past these issues to beat the Jambos 2-1 and secure a top five spot that means Europa Conference League football is heading to ML1.

Joe Efford netted the Steelmen's opener and Ricki Lamie popped up with a vital winner after Josh Ginnelly had levelled things up for Hearts. Their 2021/22 term ends on Saturday at champions Celtic.

Cornelius - a boyhood Motherwell fan - has his travel documents ready to go but they'll largely prove useful in a work capacity due to the commitment of his peers.

He said: "My passport is in date! I just got that changed as I am going away on holiday soon but I will be needing that for other reasons now!

"I am delighted. We knew it was going to be a tough one but the fans gave us everything they had, so we had to try and give them something back.

"The boys were brilliant and thankfully that is us secure in a European place. It's been hard the last week too and in training boys have been dropping like flies.

"Some of them have been not well but they've tried to get through it for the team."

It's been a tough 2022 for Motherwell, who have won just three league games since Boxing Day. But Cornelius believes it shows how much work they put in the first half of this campaign.

The midfielder added: "The season is long, so we can't forget how good we did do on our run of games at the start of this season. There was a very tough spell for us.

"But fair play to