The Thistle Archive

24-Sep-2022, falkirkfc.co.uk

Falkirk had the first chance within five minutes and should have opened the scoring. Rumarn Burrell did brilliantly to beat his man down the right-hand side, getting behind the visitor’s defence. The striker made his way into the box and did well to slip the ball back to Craig McGuffie 12 yards out, but the Falkirk number 11 held the ball too long and allowed the goalkeeper to close him down and make a save. From the resulting corner Burrell was the target, but he fired over with his back to goal. The Bairns continued to push forward, and Partick had no answer to the early pressure. The scoring was opened by Rumarn Burrell just before the ten-minute mark, when he got on the end of a great cross and directed the ball into the back of the net. The striker’s goal was well deserved as he put in a brilliant performance that saw him a constant threat to the Partick defence. Falkirk were completely on top for the rest of the first half. Callumn Morrison had a shot from range tipped over the bar, and from the resulting corner Coll Donaldson smashed the crossbar with a great effort from outside the box. Burrell continued to be a danger down the right and found Aidan Nesbitt, who fired a shot into the goalkeeper’s arms. Nesbitt then had another effort, this time the ‘keeper had to push the ball around the post. A penalty shout followed when the ball appeared to strike the arm of a Partick defender, before Nesbitt had a third opportunity when Leon McCann found him with a cross, but the Falkirk midfielder couldn’t adjust his body position in time to knock it home.

Going into the second half the match had a slower tempo than the first. Partick came back into the game for a spell and had their best chance of the game when Cammy Smith went through on goal, but he fired wide from the left-hand side of the box. Following the hour mark Falkirk regained their dominance over proceedings and got the vital second goal five minutes later with a textbook counter. Aidan Nesbitt found Callumn Morrison with a great diagonal ball, and the Bairns winger slipped through Leon McCann as the full back overlapped. McCann’s ball in was inch perfect and Gary Oliver was there to turn it home and seal the win for Falkirk. Two minutes later Falkirk were inches away from a third. Burrell went through on goal and extremely unselfishly cut it back to Morrison, but the Partick defence managed to get enough on his effort to see it just wide of the target. A series of changes from John McGlynn after going two up took some of the sting out of the game, but Falkirk again came close to scoring when Ola Lawal turned brilliantly and hit a shot that came off the inside of the post and back out. It was a comprehensive win for The Bairns, and one that sees them into the next round of the SPFL Trust Trophy.

Thistle manager Ian McCall:

I thought Falkirk thoroughly deserved to win, it maybe could have been more, although I thought we were better in the second half. I would hold my hands up - there's a lot of good players in our team - but we were very disjointed and 5 or 6 weren't even here. We made a lot of changes and John went with his team that played last week, and they thoroughly deserved to win so good luck in the next round. We had a lot of supporters here (822), and you're never happy to lose a game of football, but I think I showed where the priorities lie by the team I picked tonight.

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