MORTON signing Rory McKeown has revealed he turned down interest from a Premiership club to play under his former manager Ray McKinnon.

The left-back was at Raith Rovers when manager McKinnon and first team coach Darren Taylor were in charge, but left to move south of the border, playing for English non-league sides Warrington Town and Southport.

He spent pre-season on trial at the likes of League Two team Port Vale and National League side Solihull Moors.

The defender admitted he had interest from a Scottish Premiership side as well, but opted to move to Cappielow to play under his old management team.

He told the Tele: “Having played under Darren and Ray at Raith, and there was no doubts about it from my part.

“I know what they’re like for training and the style of football they like to play, and I knew they’d have a confidence in me considering I played nearly every minute of every game under him.

“I could either wait it out as a free agent in England where there are players left, right and centre in every position and hope someone picks me up on the free agency market, or come up here for a place and manager that I knew, so there was no doubt about it for me.

“There was interest from other clubs up here and one in the Premiership, but knowing how these two work, that was everything for me.”

After only being given a call on Tuesday to come up and train, and then signing with the club on Friday morning, McKeown was put straight into the starting line-up, playing the full 90 minutes against Queen of the South on Saturday.
While he was disappointed his new side couldn’t get off to a winning start after drawing 2-2, he was glad they came away with a share of the spoils.

He added: “I speak to Darren pretty frequently, it was a phone call I got on Tuesday, and they asked me if I’d played many minutes over pre-season and do you fancy coming up.

“He chucked me straight in and I was fine. I was in at Port Vale and played 90 minutes against Blackburn two weeks ago, and was at Solihull last weekend and played 90 for them.

“There wasn’t a question about my fitness but match sharpness and the competitive edge were maybe a little bit lacking, I felt my legs go towards he last 20-30 minutes.

“You can come away from a game saying that feels like a defeat but we’re on the board, we got a point and Queen’s, to be fair to them, they hung into the game.

“Two-nil is one of those weird leads where if you don’t put another one away there’s always the chance if they get the one they’ll get the two, and unfortunately Saturday was one of those days.”