Saturday 23rd November, 2019 at 7:19pm
It was down to William Hill Scottish Cup action for Partick Thistle as the Jags entertained East of Scotland side Penicuik Athletic in the third round of the illustrious completion. Thistle would head through to the next round courtesy of Reece Cole’s early goal and Jags gaffer Ian McCall spoke to ptfc.co.uk shortly after the full time whistle.
“I thought we started the game terrifically well and scored with our first attack. For the first ten minutes I thought we were really good. We could have scored a second goal when Craig Slater had the opportunity but credit to the goalkeeper, he made a top notch save. Penicuik then had their best chance of the entire game and got a huge lift from that and I thought they were the better team for the rest of the first half.
“We’d have liked to add more goals to the game in the second half but we had two or three good chances in the second half that on another day we would have scored. Penicuik didn’t really have a clear chance for Scott Fox to deal with in the second fourty five minutes and it got a bit nervy when they had a couple of corners at the end but we held out and got our name in tomorrow’s draw.”
There were a couple of claims for penalty kicks from the Jags support and Ian believes his side should have been given, at least, one spot kick.
“I think they were two of the clearest penalties I’ve ever seen and they were turned down. I went to speak to the referee after the game to get his thoughts which I can respect and understand. If we had got those then it might have made the game a little more comfortable but we saw it out well and that is two homes games in a row we’ve got over the line in the final minutes which we weren’t doing earlier in the season.”
Our visitor’s brought over 1,300 supporters through from Penicuik and the gaffer believed it contributed to a great cup tie.
“I think you have to give huge credit to Penicuik Athletic. Their supporters were fantastic, they played very well and were the better team in the first half and that made for a good Scottish Cup tie. When you look at the other results in the Scottish Cup today, with a number of the more fancied teams going out, then at least we are in the hat for the next round.”
The draw for the fourth round takes place tomorrow evening but for McCall his focus is firmly on the visit of Alloa Athletic to the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill on Tuesday evening.
“We’ll get who we get in the cup draw and worry about that in January when the tie is close. For us, we’ve got to recover well and get ready for Tuesday night which is another massive league game for this club. We’ll have to play an awful lot better than we did this afternoon if we want to get anything from the match so when the players report for training on Sunday morning, we’ll look to recover and get ourselves into the best position possible for the game on Tuesday night.”
A more in depth video interview with Ian McCall is available to Jagzone subscribers now as well as reaction from Cammy Palmer – log in to view.
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