LEE Kilday revealed he thought he would never pull on the Morton shirt again after making his first competitive appearance in over a year against Ayr United on Saturday.

It was 440 days since Kilday last played for the Ton against Dunfermline after suffering multiple problems with his ankle.

The 26-year-old required surgery twice to try and fix the problem, but he made his long awaited comeback in the blue and white on Saturday in their 3-1 Betfred Cup defeat against United.

It was far from an ideal return, with former Morton striker Lawrence Shankland scoring a hat-trick against his old club, but Kilday was pleased on a personal note to finally be back playing again for the Greenock side — and he hopes they can bounce back against Partick Thistle tonight.

He told the Tele: “Personally for me it was great to be back after so long out, I was looking forward to getting back out there for Morton again.

"I didn’t think it was ever going to happen again because I’ve been out for so long, but it was great just to be back out there.

“I’m delighted from a personal point of view, but from a team perspective it was a disappointing day.” Ray McKinnon’s side made a strong start, going 1-0 up early in the game thanks to Michael Tidser’s free-kick.

Morton had several chances to extend their lead in the first half, but were punished by Shankland in the second as the Honest Men ran out comfortable winners.

Kilday added: “It wasn’t great from us.

“I just don’t think we were getting high and pressing like we were in the first half. 

“We weren’t keeping the ball as well and we were just a bit off the game and they capitalised and took their chances.”

The Cappielow side face a quick turnaround to take on Partick Thistle tonight in Maryhill, kick-off at 7.45pm, and Kilday says they need to put the Ayr defeat to the back of their minds.

He added: “It’s another game for us straight away, so we need to put the defeat behind us and focus on that.

“We’ll come back to training this week, focus, get our heads down and work hard and hopefully we can do better tonight.”

Against the Honest Men Kilday was part of a new-look formation, with the defender part of three centre-backs and Jack Iredale and Jim McAlister utilised as wing backs.

It’s one of a number of new systems manager McKinnon has deployed, including a 4-3-3 formation, during their pre-season games.

Kilday has also been used on the right, with an out-and-out right-back still to be signed by Morton.

The 26-year-old believes it will take the team time to get used to any new formations being used.

He said: “I thought it was good. I felt comfortable in it and enjoyed it. Obviously it’s a new formation for the boys so it will take us some time to get used to it but I thought it was alright.

“I played right-back against Forfar, it’s just disappointing I moved back across there and in the last 10 minutes I began to cramp up a bit.”