He’s been dubbed ‘McMillions’. That’s because David McMillan has scored a record number of goals for Dundalk as they reached the third qualifying round of the Uefa Champions League, accruing the huge financial windfall that goes with it.
Estimates vary, but the informed opinion is that £5m is already earmarked for the Oriel Park coffers as a result of the Lilywhites’ progress in the competition so far.
That could reach a figure unheard of in domestic Irish soccer should there be progress beyond the two-legged tie with Legia Warsaw over the next week or so.
Fears that Dundalk would struggle for goals following the departure of Richie Towell at the end of last season have been well and truly dispelled. McMillan has always been a source of goals for the Town, but this year he’s been brilliant, knocking them in against all defences, across Europe as well as Ireland.
Brought to Oriel Park from UCD by Stephen Kenny, McMillan scored three times over the two legs of the FH Hafnarfjordur tie and followed with a brace against BATE Borisov at the start of this month.
That brought him to six goals overall, making him the leading Irish marksman in the Champions League. He is also Dundalk’s top scorer in all European competitions.
And, really, all that the Dublin-based architect is doing is maintaining his excellent League of Ireland form.
He hit Derry City for three in the league and then followed the week after with another hat-trick, this one in the defeat of Longford Town.
Awards, like goals, have been coming thick and fast for the 27-year-old. When he was named SSE Airtricity/ SWAI player of the month for July, he got a trophy to place alongside the two he had already won – with UCD, in 2010, and Dundalk in March of last year.
McMillan would be first to admit that it can all be done on his own. In Daryl Horgan he has a perfect foil up front, the Damien Duff lookalike nearly always inch perfect with his crosses. None was more accurately measured than the one leading to McMillan’s first goal in the BATE game.
With the job almost done at Tallaght, McMillan was replaced late on by Robbie Benson.
Within minutes the supersub had his name on the scoresheet, his goal putting the result beyond doubt and convincing manager Kenny, if it needed to be done, that his bench lacks nothing in strength.
Patrick McEleney is another case in point.
One of the players Kenny brought in following Towell’s departure, the Derry native was another to be sprung from the bench, and he proceeded to dominate in midfield, linking perfectly with Chris Shields and Stephen O’Donnell.
At the back, Sean Gannon, Paddy Barrett, Andy Boyle and Dave Massey exude confidence, providing solid cover for Gary Rogers, who, at 35 and with upwards of 500 League of Ireland appearances to his credit, is by far the team’s most experienced player.
It’s a measure of how well the defence is playing that even in the absence through injury of Brian Gartland, so long a mainstay, goals against are being kept to the minimum in the games that count.
