Mark McMillan chases unique set of medals
Published on 13 May 2010

The Herald reports
Kevin Ferrie

In the context of tonight’s Magners League semi-final, the date September 19, 2003 feels deeply significant.

It was the only time Glasgow have played a knockout tie on Welsh soil and, with the club’s leading players in Australia at the World Cup, the opportunity was presented to two players to make their debuts.

For Mark McMillan it was something of a baptism of fire, having been promoted to the starting XV when Kenny Sinclair was ruled out through injury.

The 20-year-old played the full 80 minutes and, by the finish, had been joined at half-back by a newcomer to the club, one Dan Parks, who was also making his debut.

The outcome was striking on two counts. One, a 
foot note, was that Parks, who has gone on to set Magners League scoring records, failed to register a point but, more importantly, Glasgow claimed a rare victory in Wales.

McMillan, who will turn 27 on Monday, remembers the game well and did not even have to be prompted on the scoreline. He was surprised that others in the current squad had not been involved that day and, indeed, his memory served him well when he suggested that Graeme Morrison had surely been around, because the centre had been named in that team only, like Sinclair, to withdraw on the day of the game.

Since then McMillan has had a curious career. On the one hand, he won every honour available in the English club game while with Leeds Tykes and London Wasps, winning the English Cup with the former and the Premiership as well as a Heineken Cup winners’ medal with the latter.

Yet, for all that he played in more knockout matches at elite level than the rest of the Glasgow squad put together in that time, very few of them were as the starting scrum-half.

He will leave Glasgow at the end of this season having again spent rather more time on benches than he would have wanted, particularly since Chris Cusiter joined the club last summer.

Yet the withdrawal, through injury, of the Scotland captain has given McMillan an opportunity to play a bigger role in pursuing a victory that could help him complete a unique set of medals and would also be particularly special since he would be achieving it with his home club. “There are a lot of these guys I’ve known since I was as young as eight,” he said. People like Ferg Thomson, Graeme Morrison and Kelly Brown I’ve known pretty much all my rugby life. I played with Al Kellock at Stirling County. I go a long way back with Rob Dewey too. So if we could win this it would be very special.”

If anything gives Glasgow an edge going into this match against the star-studded Ospreys, with their mix of All Blacks and British & Irish Lions, it is that sense of this being a band of brothers.

Even the likes of Parks, who arrived from Australia seven years ago, Bernie Stortoni, who has hardly missed a game in his three seasons since being recruited as what was thought of as something of a stop-gap, Kevin Tkachuk, the Canadian international prop, and Hefin O’Hare, the busy little rugby league convert, have become firm favourites with supporters.

“We are well aware of the Ospreys’ quality, but we know each other too,” said McMillan. “Sure, we know all about their strengths, but we know their weaknesses too and those are the things we’re focusing on.”

Alone among the four teams in the quarter-finals, Glasgow have never won a competition that has involved teams from beyond their own borders. The Ospreys, like Leinster and Munster, who meet tomorrow, have won this competition twice before. Unlike the two great Irish provinces they have not won the Heineken Cup, but they have triumphed over the best of English opposition in the Anglo-Welsh Cup.

Yet that could help Glasgow find the motivation required to make what would be a huge breakthrough for Scottish rugby, according to McMillan.

“There’s an element there that our guys are so hungry to achieve that first bit of glory that it is generating a lot of positive energy . . . a lot of excitement,” he said.

That could, of course, prove counter-productive if not properly channeled, which is where the experience of the man who will get his hands on the ball more than any other Glasgow player can come into play.

“Knock-out rugby is different,” he said. “You’ve got to play smart. You’ve got to be disciplined.

“We can take a lot from last weekend’s game against the Scarlets in Llanelli because we went for the four-try win and achieved it.

“However, the Scarlets came out throwing the ball about last week and perhaps we focused on our attack more. We’ve worked on tightening up on our defence this week because there is not the same need to chase bonuses. It’s just about getting the win.”

In terms of preparation, that has generally been the approach adopted by Glasgow in a season during which they led the Magners League for a long period by grinding out wins. Last Sunday’s was only the second four-try bonus point they had picked up in 18 league matches and – interestingly enough along with Leinster, the team who finished top – theirs was the joint lowest haul of bonus points in total, just three in all.

While Glasgow are aiming for a first win at the Liberty Stadium, they also seem to have got over the inferiority complex that made that win over the Celtic Warriors back in 2003 such a big surprise.

Following that victory they were to win just one of their next 20 matches in Wales between 2003 and 2008. However, starting with their 20-14 win at Newport Gwent Dragons in March 2008, they have lost just three times in nine league visits to Wales.

That record should not have gone unnoticed, in particular by the one other player on the pitch tonight who can share with Mark McMillan and Dan Parks the memory of personal involvement in that Celtic Cup clash in Bridgend.

Then again, Ryan Jones, the Ospreys captain who has since led Wales to a grand slam, may not remember that occasion during his first season as a professional just as clearly as Mark McMillan does.

This article was originally posted on 14-May-2010, 06:39 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 14-May-2010, 06:40.