Thursday 3rd March, 2022 at 3:26pm
Tuesday’s game against Arbroath ended in a draw for Partick Thistle thanks to an incredible first club goal from Ciaran McKenna. Now the Jags return to Firhill for a cinch Championship clash with Inverness and the midweek goal hero sat down with ptfc.co.uk to share his thoughts on the upcoming fixture and the feeling of finding the back of the net at Gayfield:
“Scoring felt really good – even though I’m a right back I think I was due a goal. I’d not scored yet for the club but it came at a great time. We knew how big the game was and how important it was not to get beat and after a poor first half I thought we started the second half really well.
“It was good to get my first goal for the club but also get the goal for the team. It was at a good time where it gave us a bit of a lift to go on and dominate the rest of the game. I’m just delighted overall.”
McKenna spoke about how the team views the draw against Arbroath and whether they can take it as a positive result.
“There’s no doubt we were going there to win the game and we really wanted to win. We knew it would have been massive but I think especially when you take how we started the game and the score at half-time and how we performed that first half, I think we’d have taken a point at the end of the game.
“Overall, I think it was probably a fair result because they dominated the first half quite convincingly and I think we dominated the second half quite convincingly. We maybe could have nicked it at the end with a few chances but I think we can take the positives from it and hopefully build on it and go on to get a few wins in the next week.”
The draw in Angus took the Jags into fourth place above Raith Rovers but Ciaran reckons the team won’t get too caught up on league positions at this point in the campaign.
“I don’t think too many of us are looking at the table to be honest, I think we know where we stand and what we have to do to catch the teams above us but there’s no doubt that it did feels like we were in fifth place for a long time and it didn’t matter whether we won, drew or whatever, it just felt like we were constantly in fifth. It maybe helps a little but there’s still a lot of football to be played and we’re just focusing on one game at a time and letting the table take care of itself.”
Ciaran takes a look back at previous results against Inverness this season and breaks down how the team can learn from those results to get three points this time around.
“I don’t think we need to do too many things all too differently, I think we have been very consistent over the season and we’ve been putting in good performances. It was only three weeks ago that we played them and I think we actually played pretty well that game up there in a tough midweek fixture where the conditions weren’t great.
“We played really well in the first half and all three of our goals were really creative; it wasn’t like they were gifting us goals. We had to work hard for them and create goals and I think we know that we can do that. I think even here at home against Morton even though we lost we were dominating the game and we were getting into the final third, I think we know we are capable of doing that.
“So I think it’s just a case of doing more of the same but if you look back to the last game against them we gave away cheap goals so we’ll be looking to eradicate that and be more solid at the back while still trying to dominate going forward.”
Exclusive video interviews with Robbie Crawford and Thistle assistant manager Alan Archibald will be available for JagZone subscribers to watch today – log in to view.
JagZone subscribers will be able to tune in to live audio commentary for our clash with Inverness CT, starting at 7:15pm – click here to tune in.
We will be providing a pay-per-view option, priced at £12, for any supporter who wishes to watch our livestream of the match – click here for more info.
We’ll have extended highlights and a full game replay of the fixture on JagZone following the game.
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