The Thistle Archive

Blair McNally, 01-Aug-2021, nottheoldfirm.com

Partick Thistle’s return to the Scottish Championship started in fine fashion on flag day with an entertaining 3-2 victory over Queen of the South. Brian Graham’s brace was cancelled out by Willie Gibson’s stunning opener and a Ruari Paton header. Scott Tiffoney scored the winner five minutes from time to ensure the League One champions got off to a winning start.

Queen’s took the lead 10 minutes in through a moment of magic. Cutting in from the left, Gibson unleashed a venomous strike. The movement proved too much for Thistle goalkeeper Jamie Sneddon as it nestled into the top corner. Within minutes, Partick Thistle were level. Rudden latched onto a neat through ball by Stuart Bannigan on the byline. His looping cross was met by Graham, heading into the roof of the net. Queen of the South manager Allan Johnston was ordered to watch the remainder of the game from the stands by referee Greg Aitken, later confirming the dismissal was for ‘stepping on the pitch.’ The home side were ahead before the break, Graham on-hand to tap in a rebound from Ciaran McKenna’s header. Kyle Turner’s volley inside the six yard box looked to have doubled Thistle’s lead but Graham was judged to have returned the ball from out of play. The away side took full advantage, Paton’s looping header ending up in the net shortly after. Tiffoney would ensure Thistle would end the day with three points, firing coolly inside the box to secure the victory.

Here are three things we learned:

1) Attacking flair: The permanent summer additions of Cammy Smith, Turner and Tiffoney have added a new lease of life to Partick Thistle’s attack. With strength in depth, Thistle are an exciting bunch going forward and will have no problem scoring goals this season.

2) Age only a number: Gibson rolled back the years with one of the strikes of the season, rattling one into the top corner from 25 yards out. Turning 37 next week, Gibson was at the forefront of the action at Firhill, leading by example with his energy and aggression.

3) Goals for Graham: Graham has made a name for himself as a regular scorer across a variety of SPFL levels. The 33-year-old is showing no signs of stopping and since his Thistle arrival, the striker has scored 20 goals in 36 games.

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

I actually thought we were pretty poor today and Queens were better than us but it’s a great result for us. We’re still searching for the right shape and we’re still a couple of players light but Tiff comes on and does the business for us so we’re delighted. This is a team who showed last season that they can come back when they get knocked down, I can’t question them in that regard. The guys who we’ve added have that in them too, for example Holt and Mayo both defended well in that second half. At the end of the day, we got the result although we feel there’s plenty of improvements to be made. We’re still searching for the right formation for our players and hopefully we can find it soon. We’ve got a game next Saturday then we’ve got two weeks before the next match so that’ll give us a bit of time to work on different things with the team which will be useful for us.

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HOT-START FOR GRAHAM

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