The Thistle Archive

Partick Thistle won to leave Ross County bottom of the Scottish Premiership before the winter break. County fell behind when captain Andrew Davies' passback was intercepted by Kris Doolan and the striker rounded Scott Fox to score. Substitute Conor Sammon tested Fox twice as Thistle pressed for a second. And Sammon did find the net late on to ensure County trail Thistle by three points as the league goes into hiatus until late January. It's a huge victory - not least psychologically - for Thistle. They have their home form to thank for still being in touch with the teams around them - this was their fifth win in their past six games at Firhill.

Ross County manager Owen Coyle will spend the winter break trying to work out how to arrest a run of nine games without a win. The meaningful first-half action was almost entirely confined to a four-minute period, during which the crucial breakthrough was made. That came about utterly needlessly as far as County were concerned. Davies had possession in a comfortable position 40 yards from his own goal, but for reasons best known to him, he turned and played a woefully short pass in the direction of Fox. Doolan anticipated the mistake, latching on to the loose ball before rounding the stranded Fox and side-footing into the net despite the despairing efforts of Davies to get back to rescue the situation. Having failed in that regard, the County skipper had the opportunity to redeem himself at the other end just a few minutes later. However, the unmarked centre-back spurned that chance, heading wide from six yards out.

County may point to the other incident of note in the first period, a Sean Kelly 'goal' chalked off for offside by the assistant referee Sean Carr - the official who failed to spot Oli Shaw's 'goal' for Hibs in last week's Edinburgh derby. Otherwise, Tomas Cerny was largely untroubled in the Thistle goal, whereas Fox had to make two crucial saves to keep his side in the contest. On both occasions, it was Sammon who was denied. He bullied Marcus Fraser off the ball before firing goalwards and when Fox kept that effort out, Doolan was only inches away from knocking in the rebound. Fox was on hand again to block Sammon's next goalbound strike but he could do nothing about the goal that secured the points. The substitute's pace had caused problems since his early introduction for the injured Miles Storey and it was telling here as he raced on to an Andrew McCarthy pass, cut infield and curled the ball past the keeper.

Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald:

I thought it was a very scrappy first half, there wasn't a lot in it and the mistake leads to our goal. Second half, we had a number of chances to put the game to bed and didn't take them until Connor got his reward for an outstanding performance. It certainly helps [being off the bottom]. We go into the winter break with a bit of positivity and hopefully come out with three players back from injury. The results today make the bottom half of the table ever so tight and we need to be ready after the break. The games against teams round about us are going to be so important and victories like today's against our closest rivals are massive for us.

Ross County manager Owen Coyle:

The first 45 minutes I felt we were very comfortable and obviously we've made a horrendous mistake. It was very unlike the skipper. He's had a few niggly injuries but he's been prepared to put himself out there. My disappointment is the reaction in the second half. We huffed and puffed without any real penetration or goalscoring chances. There's no doubt there's a lot of hard work ahead of us but we knew that when we came in. If that means adding a few players to the squad and hopefully adding quality then that's what we'll look to do.

bbc.com

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