McMillan on right road to redemption
FULL-BACK ENJOYING PLAY-OFF ROLE REVERSAL WITH THISTLE
JACK MCMILLAN is on the path to forgiveness with his Partick colleagues.
The Thistle full-back was in the Livingston team that defeated Alan Archibald’s Jags home and away in the 2018 play-off final.
His current manager, Kris Doolan, and midfielders Stevie Lawless and Stuart Bannigan dropped to the second tier as a result of that disappointment and it’s been a sore subject for those Jags stalwarts to broach with McMillan.
Now, however, they’re all on the brink of returning to the showdown fixture thanks to a 3-0 semi-final first-leg victory over Ayr United.
McMillan scored the opener in front of over 7,000 fans at Firhill, his second strike of what is proving to be a powerful Partick play-off run.
The 25-year-old said: ‘I don’t think I’m allowed to speak too much about what happened five years ago, but I kind of owe them one, don’t I?
‘To get Thistle back up to where they belong would mean a lot. The lads do remind me a wee bit about what I did to them.
‘Stevie joined Livingston the next season so it was forgotten about for him but I think Banzo (Bannigan) is still angry.’
Partick have lost just once in 16 games since Doolan replaced Ian McCall in the hotseat. Many a promotion prospect believed momentum was on their side over the years, only to falter when faced with a top flight team.
No fourth-placed Championship outfit has ever gone up after a six-game series but McMillan believes this surging Partick group has everything in place to brush aside that jinx.
He added: ‘The manager said that these things are there to be broken. Hopefully, we’re the team to do that.
‘Maybe there’s never been a fourth-placed team quite with the momentum we’ve got. We’re playing lots of good stuff. The clean sheets since the manager came in are huge — we’re keeping things tight and scoring goals.
‘Similar to Queen’s Park away where we came flying out the traps, we’re going to Ayr to win.’
Thistle will face an Ayr team clinging to hope through the heroics of manager Lee Bullen’s old club.
Sheffield Wednesday recovered from a 4-0 first-leg deficit to knock Peterborough out on penalties in their League One play-off semi-final on Thursday.
Ayr captain Sean McGinty watched the Hillsborough drama unfold on television and said: ‘When Sheffield Wednesday scored two goals early on, that changed it. If we get one, then Thistle might start panicking. Then you could get another and it’s definitely possible.
‘We’ve seen Partick lose goals, including three to Queen’s Park.
And we’ve beaten teams by four and five at home. So it is doable.
‘We’ll have a big crowd there. We have to perform because we were off it on Friday.’
Bullen reported top scorer Dipo Akinyemi, who missed out on Friday through illness, will be assessed day-to-day ahead of this week’s return leg at Somerset Park.
‘Dipo was missed,’ conceded McGinty. ‘He’s been fantastic all season.
‘Mark McKenzie didn’t get a goal but he held it up well and linked well. But hopefully we can have Dipo back.’