THE sun has made an appearance for Ray McKinnon’s unveiling as Greenock Morton manager and the 47-year-old is cheerfully resisting any attempts to drag him back to the dark days of his sacking by Dundee United in October.

The Tannadice club were sitting fourth back then, just five points off Championship leaders St Mirren, hardly out of the title challenge with seven months of the season to run.

If McKinnon’s time on Tayside has been reassessed a little due to the way things seemed to deteriorate in his absence, all he will say on the subject is that he bears no ill will towards anyone on Tannadice and is delighted to have moved on in his career.

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“Do I have a point to prove?” asked McKinnon. “No, I am absolutely confident in what I achieved there. I built two teams in a year - one in the first year and one in the second year so I have nothing to prove. I was disappointed to be relieved of my duties but that is football, isn’t it? It was frustrating for a period, but that passed. I have a job to do here now. Hopefully we get them on the first day of the season! We probably will now.”

People sometimes sneer at the assertion that the Championship is a difficult league to get out of, but next season’s edition already seems to be a case par excellence. With promoted Ayr United and Alloa Athletic likely to do a decent job defying the odds, and Partick Thistle and Ross County dropping back down a division, Scotland’s second tier looks like a turkey shoot and Morton, now into their fourth decade outwith the top division, retain ambitions of gatecrashing the party. Bringing an end to Jim Duffy’s tenure after four years at the helm – his three championship finishes were fifth, fourth and seventh - is a signal of that.

It might not always be reflected in the quaint surroundings, but a wind of change is blowing through Cappielow right now under chief executive Warren Hawke. New chairman Crawford Rae has picked up the reins after his father Douglas stepped back at the end of last season due to his failing health. He has made it his personal mission to achieve what his dad couldn’t and deliver Morton back to the top league in the land.

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This won’t be done at any cost, though. In tandem with an-ever expanding community trust, and an improving youth academy, a crucial strand of McKinnon’s remit will include blooding home-reared young players when the time is right. At the moment, with only four senior professionals under contract – midfielder Michael Tidser, strikers Robert Thomson and Bob McHugh, and promising Australian left-back Jack Iredale – these young players are almost all he has got.

As Crawford describes, McKinnon is here on a one-year rolling contract but with a three-year promotion plan. “We were down in League One and Jim [Duffy] got us out of there, stabilised things and did a great job,” he said. “But like anything in football there’s a time to freshen things up.

“It’s a new regime. My father is not keeping in the best of health at this minute and one thing that he regretted is not bringing top-flight football to Inverclyde during his tenure. It’s an ambition of mine that we can do that for him during his lifetime. It’s a three-year plan. It’s a very tough league this year, there’s no getting away from that. It’s a building process. The first year is going to be a new team, we need to obviously get the right boys in."

While McKinnon’s first act will be to assess and attempt to resign certain out-of-contract players who largely served the club well, he knows this division better than most anyway. His Raith side went down in the play-offs to Hibs in 2016, then United lost in the 2017 final to Hamilton, beating Morton over two legs along the way.

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“It is a tough environment because everybody is looking at the same players and we are probably not at the top end of the wage scale,” said McKinnon. “You have to get your recruitment very right. But there are a lot of people out there who want to play for Morton. Thankfully I have got a very good relationship with probably everyone I have worked with and there are players right now who are offering their services. I will definitely be tapping into this market.”

The exploits of David Hopkin, another man once mentioned with this job, has changed the dynamic in this division. “If you get the right squad together and the right mentality around your squad, anything is possible,” says McKinnon. “The example of Livi will give us a wee bit of extra drive.”