Dons D down Killie after McKenna thunderbolt

He is still adding elements to his game, but Scott McKenna added zeros to his price tag with a 40-yard thunderbolt that helped Aberdeen down Kilmarnock.

McKenna was a wanted man before Killie’s visit, with Aston Villa lurking and Hull City seeing three bids knocked back. The Tigers’ latest was worth £700,000. But the goal McKenna notched against Steve Clarke’s side was one a player worth 10 times as much would have been overjoyed with.

It put the Dons into the lead four minutes after Adam Rooney had cancelled out Kris Boyd’s opener.

A wonderful solo effort from Niall McGinn sealed a deserved victory for the home side.

But McKenna’s strike – along with yet another rock-solid showing at centre-half – is what fans and scouts alike will be talking about in the coming days.

McKenna is undoubtedly a star in the making, but the Dons were without two of their other key men for Killie’s visit.

Keeper Joe Lewis has been Aberdeen’s saviour on plenty of occasions over the last season-and-a-half.

For backup stopper Danny Rogers, watching Lewis’ heroics from the bench over the first half of this campaign must have been as frustrating as it was inspiring.

Rogers’ moment arrived when Lewis was carried off at Ibrox in midweek.

The cruciate ligament damage the Dons’ number one sustained meant it continued into the weekend – and will likely stretch on for another eight weeks.

With summer signing Dominic Ball also handed a start, the Dons quickly took a grip of the game.

Shay Logan tested Jamie MacDonald in the third minute with a sharp volley from Gary Mackay-Steven’s corner, but Killie’s keeper saved well at his near post.

Niall McGinn, in from the start for the first time since returning to Pittodrie, came close 15 minutes later with a fierce effort from the edge of the box, only for MacDonald to launch himself into a flying save.

Kilmarnock under Steve Clarke have been a more formidable outfit than before.

Indeed, they arrived in the Granite City undefeated since losing 3-1 to the Dons at the tail end of November.

As the first-half matured, they began to carve out chances.

On 25 minutes, Kris Boyd was perhaps lucky to escape a booking after plummeting to the deck in search of a penalty under the gentlest of challenges.

He was even luckier three minutes later when Greg Taylor’s shot – which followed a criminally sloppy passage of play by the Dons – struck his rear end on its way past the luckless Rogers and into the net.

Boyd, a regular target for abuse from Aberdeen fans, clearly relished his 120th Kilmarnock goal, and celebrated in front of the Dick Donald Stand, much to his abusers’ fury.

The Dons punters’ ire was cooled just after the re-start when Adam Rooney popped up – as he so often has – to nudge Scott McKenna’s header, from a McGinn corner, over the line via the crossbar.

Four minutes later, it was transformed into elation.

McKenna’s star has been on the rise all season.

The strike with which he put the Dons in front – an absolute rasper from 40 yards that moved and dipped impossibly in the air – would still be rising this morning had the net not stopped it.

But there was more quality to come, this time from McGinn, who confirmed his second coming with a stunning finish following a lung-bursting 50-yard run.

The Dons closed the game out in the aftermath, aided by their stand-in keeper, whose superb double stop from Boyd and Youssouf Mulumbu, followed by a stunner from Stephen O’Donnell, preserved their twogoal cushion.