The Thistle Archive

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Thistle’s Joe Cardle created the game’s first opening on 11 minutes when he picked up the ball in the Blue Toon half and darted forward however his parting shot cleared the bar. Joshua Rae was called into action on 14 minutes when Ryan Williamson let fly from 18 yards with the Peterhead shot-stopper making a fine save. Rae saved again a minute later when Cardle tried his luck again with his shot taking a deflection on its way towards the visitors’ goal. Peterhead made the most of Rae being alert by taking the lead on 30 minutes. Pressure from Jim McInally’s side allowed Steven Boyd to get space on the right and he picked out skipper Scott Brown who found the net for the second week running. Thistle were stung into retaliation and Graham was just inches away from connecting with a cross from James Penrice and sending a header towards Peterhead’s goal. Just before the break the Balmoor men almost doubled their lead when home goalkeeper Kieran Wright failed to gather a Gary Fraser cross and the ball dropped to Gary MacKenzie however the big defender could not force it home.

A minute into the second half and Brown tried his luck again but his shot curled wide of goal. Just after the hour mark Alan Cook, who had just replaced Isaac Layne had a glimpse of goal however his shot was easily dealt with by Wright. With ten minutes to go substitute Lyall Cameron darted into the home side’s penalty box and picked out Cook however Mouhamed Niang blocked his shot. Thistle pushed into Peterhead's box in the closing stages and Gordon looked to have nodded in an equaliser however Ferry popped up to clear at the expense of a corner. From the flag kick Graham had a chance however he headed wide with appeals for a penalty for a handball by a visiting defender were ignored by referee Kevin Graham. Striker Graham was injured shortly afterwards and after he had received treatment before being substituted Peterhead saw things out for a fine win.

Partick Thistle manager Ian McCall, via ptfc.co.uk

I thought for the first half an hour of the game we played pretty well and they were never in our half but we’re watching the same movie again, like the home game against Dumbarton. It was a scrappy goal to give away and it’s frustrating to concede from a situation where we had the ball. We give it away in our own half and then have a couple of opportunities to get a tackle in but don’t clear it and get punished for that with a really good finish from their lad. To be honest, after their goal I don’t think we played well. We still created some chances but it was just a poor, poor result for us. For the amount of possession that we had we should have made a lot more chances and tested their goalkeeper a lot more. There’s no getting away from it; it’s a really bad result and we need to recover from it straight away.

Peterhead manager Jim McInally, via peterheadfc.org

Joshua Rae had a great couple of saves before we scored a really good goal. Steven Boyd deserves great credit as he could have scored himself, however he looked up and saw that Scott was in a better position than him and passed. Scott produced another excellent finish and we saw things out to the break quite comfortably. In the second half Thistle had a lot of possession and territory however we were good on the counter-attack and we should have picked them off that way. Alan Cook, Lyall Cameron and Steven all had chances however we could not get the second. When that happens the home side will increase the pressure in the final minutes and that is what happened. There were a few dangerous situations however Joshua did not have a lot to do.

ON COURSE FOR RECORD GOALS DROUGHT

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