Kilmarnock beat Dundee in a Scottish Premiership match on a night that confirmed they will be in the Premiership next season, and Neil McCann said the feeling around the dressing room was one of relief and pride. McCann said it felt brilliant and that the club had come a long way from the point where, in his words, things “looked pretty bleak.”
McCann said he had already taken note of the score at Pittodrie, but insisted he stayed calm until a deflected shot went into the top corner. After that, he said, the message was simple: keep playing. He called it “a big night tonight” after saying Saturday had been “a big afternoon,” and added that it was a special evening knowing Kilmarnock would be in the Premiership next season.
The result gave Kilmarnock the safety they had been chasing and left Dundee without the finish they wanted in the latest chapter of a tight survival fight. Joe Hugill said the target from the moment he arrived was to keep the club in the Premiership, then push on for ninth. Hugill said Kilmarnock always believed the goal was coming and that getting the win was the main thing.
For McCann, the moment also carried a sense of completion. He said he and Billy Dodds came in to do a job and he was delighted they had managed to do it, while also paying tribute to the staff behind the scenes. The pressure around the ground eased as the final stages played out, with fans able to absorb the fact that another season at this level was secured before the night was over.
The win also fitted into a wider weekend picture in the Scottish Premiership, with the top six due to play their penultimate games the following day. That context made the relief in the Kilmarnock camp all the sharper: this was not just another result, but the one that settled their status for next season and allowed the club to move from survival to planning.
Elsewhere, St Mirren’s recent past offered a reminder of how thin the line can be in this part of the table. Their last play-off involvement came in 2019, when they squeezed past Dundee United on penalties to stay up and Vaclav Hladky saved three spot-kicks in the shootout. That backdrop underlined why Kilmarnock’s escape mattered so much; the teams that avoid that scramble at the end can finally start thinking about more than the next result.
Craig McLeish said the players fought for each other and stuck together in a difficult away performance, and he said the focus now was on building momentum and confidence for the last three games. McLeish said he had believed in the group since day one, pointed to St Mirren’s four wins since Christmas, and noted that he has been in charge for three of them. His view was that the team know they have more in them, but also that they have to keep it going and take care of what is in front of them.
For Kilmarnock, the hard part is over. The reward for surviving is not a celebration in itself, but a clear path into next season with the burden lifted and a chance to make something more of it.
