Kilmarnock's Kris Boyd determined to prove he still has goalscoring touch
Kilmarnock striker Kris Boyd has been among the goals for 16 years but remains driven to prove to himself that he can still find the net.
The 33-year-old's winner in the 2-1 Ladbrokes Premiership victory over Ross County last week was his fourth in seven games for Killie and his 100th league strike for the Ayrshire club.
Boyd, in his third spell at Rugby Park, also scored 101 league goals as a Rangers player, with seven goals in 18 Scotland appearances.
Ahead of the visit of Partick Thistle on Saturday, where Kilmarnock will leapfrog the Jags into sixth place with a win, Boyd said: "It is proving to yourself that you can still do it when you are getting on in years.
"I have never been short of confidence if there are still chances being created, and that has been the story of my career.
"You get written off and there are days when you start to doubt yourself, like at the beginning of the season when I was not really playing.
"When you get yourself in the team and the opportunities are there and you are scoring goals, the buzz is still the same.
"Since I got myself back into the team the goals have come. It is a credit to my team-mates, with the chances they have created
"As a striker you have to put yourself into the position to score goals and I have done that, but I can't take all the credit.
"It is probably not until you are finished that you look back to what you have done. Right now it is about how I go and get 101 goals for Kilmarnock in the league and push on from there.
Boss Alan Archibald is looking for Partick Thistle to stretch the gap between them and Kilmarnock.
The Jags are in sixth place in the Ladbrokes Premiership, two points ahead of Killie, who still have assistant Lee McCulloch in charge following the departure of manager Lee Clark to Bury last month.
Thistle have won three and drawn one of their last four league matches and Archibald is hoping his in-form side take the next step towards a top-half finish against their nearest challenger.
"It's huge," he told the club's official website.
"It's strange because when we played them at Christmas it was completely different, we were at the bottom end of the league and they weren't far above us.
"Obviously since then things have changed. They've changed the manager and we've gone on a wee run and could open up a bit of a gap if things go well on Saturday. It's another massive six-pointer."
Thistle would have been in even better shape had they not conceded a late equaliser to bottom side Inverness last week, leaving Archibald feeling like his team had lost.
However, the former Thistle defender is looking to take the positives down to Ayrshire.
He said: "We're still in good form with three wins and a draw but any time you lose a last-minute goal to cost you a win it feels like a defeat and it's hard to find the positives in it, you tend to focus on the negatives.
"But it's important that we take the positives into the Kilmarnock game now though.
"Every team will be looking at the fixtures coming up and working out what points they can take and what games they can target.
"A win on Saturday would be a big step but there's a lot of football left to play and even all three points certainly won't guarantee anything."
Source: PAR
