High steaks as McMillan sets sights on top flight

PRE-MATCH PIE THE SECRET TO THISTLE FULL-BACK’S SUCCESS

WITH three goals in his last four matches, Jack McMillan has been hailed by Partick Thistle manager Kris Doolan as ‘probably the most prolific right-back in Europe right now’.

While that claim was tongue-incheek, the 25-year-old can surely lay claim to being one of the most superstitious players on the continent.

In his many pre-match routines, it is McMillan’s regular treat from his favourite local butcher in West Lothian that is the most important.

It is one he hopes will see him deliver in tomorrow night’s high stakes Premiership play-off home leg against Ross County to ensure Thistle’s promotion hopes are not pie in the sky.

‘I have a steak pie the night before every game,’ grinned McMillan.

‘So I’ll be having a steak pie on Wednesday night and a steak pie on Saturday night.

‘We will go up north to stay over on the Saturday night before playing County in the second leg and I’ll be taking a steak pie up with me. I’ll put it in the fridge on the bus! But it has to be from my local butcher — Boghall Butchers in Bathgate. Then I have a yoghurt after the game.

‘Honestly, I’m shocking for being superstitious. It starts the day before the game all the way up to kick-off.

‘I wake up, have the same breakfast, a bagel, a cup of tea.

‘I put on my left sock before my right sock then I have a drink of water then wash my face before going out.

‘There’s also the same walk routine with my dog.

‘It even continues during the game. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my socks go down in the second half of games.

‘It’s crazy! My socks have got holes in them. But I keep scoring in them so I keep wearing them!’ A striker in his younger days in the Hearts academy, McMillan believes that is the key to his hot scoring streak, notching in three of Thistle’s four play-off matches against Queen’s Park and Ayr United. His team-mates may not be ribbing him about being the most prolific right-back in Europe but they have been taking him to task for his celebrations. ‘I think I must be the most prolific right-back in Europe — but I don’t know what’s happening,’ laughed McMillan, after fans voted him the club’s McCrea Financial Services Player of the Month for May. ‘I’ve been kind of doing the same all season but the ball hasn’t been landing for me. ‘For some weird reason in the play-offs it seems to be landing for me.

‘Away at Ayr last Friday, the ball just bounced off my head and went into the back of the net. But long may it continue. It’s the first time I’ve got three in four in senior football. The last time I did that I was probably playing Under-14s or Under-15 football.

‘I think being a striker earlier in my career helped. When I get in the box I am calm and relaxed. I don’t really seem to slash at anything.

‘The guys in the dressing room aren’t saying much about the gaffer’s comments. But I’m getting stick about my celebrations. They say I need to find a better one. I just run to a corner.

‘Tommy Taylor, the club photographer, was raging because for one of the goals I didn’t go to his corner. He was fuming.’

Yet just as pleasing to McMillan is Thistle’s watertight defence, which has kept a clean sheet in their last three play-off matches, scoring 16 and conceding only three in ties against the Spiders and Ayr. Thistle are flying ahead of hosting a County side that finished 11th in the Premiership.

And, as a member of the Livingston side that won the 2018 play-off final 1-0 at Firhill to win promotion 3-1 on aggregate, he sees similarities between that Livi team and his current side.

He said: ‘In the dressing room at that time at Livingston, the momentum we had was very similar to what we have right now.

‘We felt like we were going to beat anybody — whether it was Celtic or Rangers.

‘We just had that team spirit. It was a very tight group and it is similar here at Partick Thistle.

‘Is the pressure on Ross County? I think so. But there’s also pressure on us.

‘We put pressure on ourselves because we are in a great run of form, so there’s different pressure on both teams. Hopefully, I can take my experience of the play-offs into these two games against Ross County.’