Saturday 6th April, 2019 at 7:32pm
An entertaining ninety minutes at the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill saw the points shared between Partick Thistle and Dunfermline Athletic as the sides drew 2-2.
The Jags fell two goals behind early in the game but responded well to grab a very merited point, with only last ditch defending and good goalkeeping from Ryan Scully, denying the Maryhill men the victory.
Jags gaffer, Gary Caldwell, spoke to ptfc.co.uk after a whirlwind 90 minutes.
“It was a great response from the side considering the start to the game. The first 20 minutes weren’t good enough. We didn’t start the game with any intensity. We had poor body language, we weren’t ready for the fight and the two goals woke us up.
“For 60-65 minutes after that I thought we were outstanding. The way we played was on the front foot. We had forward momentum throughout the second half in the chances we created. It’s never easy when you give the opposition a two goal start to come back and win the game and we just fell short in doing that. The character and reaction from everyone in the side was fantastic.”
On the back of a positive result last week at Cappielow, the Thistle manager was at a loss as to why the men in red and yellow started so sluggishly.
“I don’t know why we started so poorly. I don’t know why there was such a slow start but I’ll find out. We need more individuals being ready for the game and the fight from the first minute.”
Results elsewhere mean that Thistle rise to 8th in the Ladbrokes Championship table, despite not defeating the Pars and Gary knows it could be an important point at the end of the campaign.
“It’s a point. It’s a big point when you are 2-0 down and it looks unlikely you’ll get anything from the match. From that point of view it’s really positive. I was delighted with the response and character shown. It’s another point to the total. We’ve got 15 more points that we can add to the tally so we need to turn our focus to getting as many as we possibly can.”
Thistle were camped in the Dunfermline half for the entirety of the second half and the gaffer was pleased with the effort his side put in.
“I think you could see we were the only team trying to win the game in the second half. We made positive subs which forced them to change to try and contain us. We moved to three players up front to match them up and it worked because it got our second goal.
“We will always be a team that will try and win the game, if we are drawing at home or away with 10 minutes to go, we’ll hope to be in the ascendency to try and win the match. I thought the players gave everything, we just couldn’t get the final shot but, in fairness, the goalkeeper for Dunfermline made some big saves for them. In terms of effort, I was pleased with everyone.”
Scott McDonald popped up with his fifth goal in Partick Thistle colours to secure the draw and the manager was pleased for the Australian.
“It was a fantastic finish. It was only a half chance for me but he just needs a sniff on goal to put it away. There were times when the ball was in the box where you wanted it to drop to him or Kris Doolan as they would have ended in goals but they maybe fell to the wrong player or defenders managed to get the ball clear. The front two, then three, worked really well and helped us get up the pitch to get back into the game to get the draw.”
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