McMillan to captain Pars

"I will be okay I assured the gaffer. It is the first league game of the season and I want to play.

Jordan McMillan is fit and looking forward to leading out the Dunfermline Athletic team at Cowdenbeath on Saturday afternoon. Speaking exclusively to the website the 23 year old defender revealed that he had accepted the honour of the captaincy:-

"There have been a lot of changes but I think it was needed; the Club wants to go in a direction where they want to bring in younger boys and give them a chance. It is probably a good thing because the boys who have been brought in are eager to do well, I think you will see that over the season."

The changes have included the international line up of a Slovakian, Frenchman and Italian that has challenged Jordan with the language barrier:-

"It has been hard but we are getting there. They have adapted well and obviously we have to help them as well."

The new captain missed a few training sessions this week but he is 100% certain that he will be fit to play:-

"I will be okay I assured the gaffer. It is the first league game of the season and I want to play. I have never played at Cowdenbeath before but one of my best mates was there last year - he said to me Jordan, I'm glad you are there first game of the season when the park is good.

"It is the same for both teams and I expect them to sit in and make it hard for us. I know that we have a young team but people are expecting us to do well this year and I expect the same. We are one of the favourites to go up so they will give us respect, keep it narrow and tight and try and stop us playing."

The Manager has played down the favourites suggestion and his captain is no different:-

"If you look at the clubs that have done well, it is hard to make radical changes and then get results. The gaffer knows how to work the boys and has not changed his ways over the years. He has got us together already and I think we have a good bunch and a good team. We are young and maybe a little naive but last season we were experienced and didn't do it.

"We are tipped as favourites because we came down from the SPL but it will be hard because there are so many changes, that's natural. Once we get going the gaffer will be pushing us and our objective has to be to win the league."

The team is taking shape and Jordan attributed that to the work done on the training ground with Gerry McCabe and Neil McCann:-

"Once you have the togetherness on the training ground and know each others games you adapt and get better. We have been unlucky in a couple of games; we know where we want to be and we will get there gradually. The fans will be expecting us to be firing on all cylinders but that doesn't happen after such radical changes."

Jordan has been tried in midfield as well as at full back but he claims that has happened to him at every club he has played:-

"The gaffer asked me to play left back before Stephen Jordan came in; he has looked at other things and midfield is possibly a position that I'd rather play but I am equally happy at left or right back and he knows that."

Loaned out from Rangers to Queen of the South gave Jordan his previous First Division experience, he thoroughly enjoyed it and so he knows what to expect to a certain extent.

"The First Division made me what I am going to be as a player because I hadn't played a lot of first team games and got the chance to go out and play five games on an emergency loan deal. I worked with Gordon Chisholm and Billy Dodds and got a two year deal at Rangers off the back of playing sixteen games in the First Division so my spells there obviously helped me. I look forward to it again this season."

Accepting that opponents will always view Dunfermline as a bigger club and that they will all be out to beat the East End Park outfit. Jordan feels that every game will have to be treated the same irrespective of who the opposition are. There is no doubt that he will be trying to win every game but there is a rumour that he has also filled a gap left by the departure of well known dressing room characters like Martin Hardie, Davie Graham and Liam Buchanan:-

"It might be me, I am a little hyper. A lot of people think I am a lot older than I am. I am 23 not 33 but I love the crack about the dressing room, it is all part and parcel of it. I think that is why we have a good bunch because I am always on my toes having a wee crack. You need all that, it goes with the game. I think that's why I am confident that we will do well. We have all gelled well."