Whirlwind few weeks for in-form McMillan

WHAT a few weeks David McMillan has been having.

After back-to-back hat-tricks in the league against Derry City and Longford Town, the in-form striker followed that up with three goals over two legs against FH Hafnarfjordur to become Dundalk’s all-time leading scorer in Europe.

Those displays were enough to earn him the SSE Airtricity/SWAI Player of the month award for July, which he picked up earlier today (Tuesday) on a lunch break from his job as an architect in Dublin.

It is the third time McMillan has won the award after previous successes in May 2010 when he was with UCD and March 2015 with Dundalk.

However, his brace of goals in Tuesday night’s historic victory over BATE Borisov at Tallaght Stadium have left the 27-year-old in prime contention to become only the second player to win the award in successive months.

That honour fell to Glen Crowe in September and October 2000 and it was therefore fitting that McMillan’s brace against the Belarusians saw him overtake both Crowe and Jason Byrne as the all-time leading League of Ireland goalscorer in the Champions League with six.

While both players remain the only two League of Ireland players with more European goals than him, a guarantee of at least eight more European matches means that McMillan has two more of Crowe’s records in sight.

Reacting to the victory over BATE last Tuesday, he described it as a ‘special night’ that saw Dundalk go to a place they had previously only dreamed of.

‘We never probably dreamed that we’d win 3-0,’ he said.

‘We scored at a brilliant time just before half-time. It was a great ball in from Daryl and I was just able to lose my man and able to flick a header on and thankfully it has just tipped the post on the way in. It was agonising watching it to see whether it would come off the post or what.

‘We were able to settle at halftime and come out again. They started the second half well but it was another brilliant goal then our second. Dane has done excellently to get on the end of the cross from Patrick and drill it back across. 2-0 gave us a little bit of breathing space but we always knew that if they got one it turned right back around so I think the defence deserves huge credit to keep a clean sheet.

‘The last three years have been like a whirlwind for this club. It was at rock bottom when Stephen took over. They had just survived to stay in the Premier and to go and win back to back league titles and the double last year there’s not a whole lot you can to top it off but I think we did that tonight.’

McMillan and co were brought crashing down to earth at Eamon Deacy Park on Friday though when they went down to Galway Utd on a 1-0 scoreline.

It was a disappointing end to an amazing week both personally and for the club but McMillan said the focus now was to concentrate on bouncing back against Bray Wanderers on Wednesday rather than looking ahead to the double header with Legia Warsaw later this month.

‘We haven’t played terribly or anything like that but it was a booby trap if you like and we’ve fallen on it and it’s just disappointing because we want to make sure we win the league. That’s the priority to be honest with you so it’s very disappointing to lose.

‘There may be a bit of solace in that we played okay but we probably haven’t tested Conor Winn enough in the second half. He has made one or two saves and we were looking for a penalty but some nights they are given and others they are not so you can’t really complain too much about it. I think we have got to test him more. It is disappointing. To be fair they defended reasonably well but we just haven’t tested them enough really.’

McMillan, who was rested for part of Friday’s game, said the Bray match was ‘massive now’ and took priority over Europe in the short term.

‘We just said that he said.

‘There isn’t a mention of Warsaw at all. It’s just about focusing on Bray now on Wednesday. We want to be winning games going into the European matches as well.

‘You want to be in good form for that so it’s a huge game on Wednesday now. To be fair Bray have been doing very well. Other than Rovers scoring a penalty they haven’t conceded in something like five games so it’s a huge ask but we’ve got to make sure we’re ready in there,’ for it and that we get three points on Wednesday.

‘It has traditionally been a tough venue for us to go to. Last year Ciaran (Kilduff) scored late on on his debut and it was a tough 1-0. Earlier in the season it was a 3-1 win as far as I remember but we just about beat them in Oriel Park so they are tough opponents. They’ve got a lot of experienced players, particularly at the back, so we’ve really got to be at it to make sure we get three points.’

Asked on his reaction to the draw, McMillan said he knew little about Warsaw but insisted Dundalk needed to concentrate on themselves.

‘I had a little look at all the teams before the draw and they all looked strong. There was no one I picked out and said I want them or I don’t want them.

‘I think they’re all good teams so when it comes around we’ll look forward to it but for now we just want to be going into it on the back of a win against Bray,’ he said.