Saturday 1st November, 2014 at 10:09am
Ptfc.co.uk caught up with Thistle boss, Alan Archibald, to see how things looked from the dug out and get his thoughts on a nerve-shredding 90 minutes.
“It’s obviously disappointing to concede so late on and go from winning the game to only getting a point – it feels like a defeat. It happened earlier on in the season but today was worse. To come back from two goals down like that, go ahead and not come away with all three points is very disappointing.
“We said to them at half time that they could go out there and have a go and they’ve certainly done that. We dominated the second half and didn’t let them get too much time on the ball, that combined with our work rate was what got us back into that game.”
Kallum Higginbotham and Sean Welsh both made a welcome return from injury for Thistle and made a difference to the game when they came on.
“We made a couple of changes in the second half and took Dools off because we didn’t feel he was getting a lot of protection from the referee. We decided to change it and play a slightly different system with Kallum Higginbotham up top. He has done it a number of times before in training and he can be a real handful, as it happens it did seem to have an impact on the game and we got the two goals shortly after that.”
The Jags had a strong shout for a first half penalty when Kris Doolan was caught by the Accies keeper. Doolan stayed on his feet though and couldn’t reach the ball to convert the opportunity.
“I think Doolan is too honest in the first half. It looks like the keeper catches him and, if he goes down, it’s probably a penalty. He thought he was getting on the end of it but couldn’t quite reach it, five minutes later we’re two down.
“I always believed we could come back but, after having lost 6-0 at Parkhead the other night, you do worry about the lads’ confidence. We might have gone 2-0 down but I certainly don’t think we deserved that at the time. Their first two shots on target have gone in but it was a pretty even match up until then and the lads have showed great character to get themselves back into it.”
Archie dismissed any thought of the team being happy with a point or having taken a draw before the game.
“It’s a sore one to take at the moment and difficult to see the positives but it was always going to be a tough game and we certainly played well for large chunks today. One of those positives is the fact that we got a good response after a terrible game the other night and came from two nil down to be leading the match. The fact that we showed that character is very encouraging and we’ll be taking that into the next game against St Mirren.”
