The Gaffers reaction
Saturday 4th April 2009
After the game www.ptfc.co.uk took the opportunity to speak to manager Ian McCall who offered his reflections on what was an always interesting 90 minutes.
"The first thing to say is that we are still very much in with a chance this season. A draw isn't a dreadful result by any means. St Johnstone still have a number of very tough fixtures, as we do ourselves, to play between now and the end of the season."
"In saying that a draw wasn't a bad result I actually thought that this was a game that we could have won. St Johnstone had one great chance which they took and we had two great chances of which we only took one. The lads were also saying after the game that Scott Chaplain's shot right at the end of the game was heading for the back of the net before it struck a St Johnstone defender. When Simon missed his chances I think that we all thought that we had lost our chance but this team simply doesn't know when they are beaten. The character and heart that they exhibited to come back and draw the game was second to none and I can't praise them enough for that. I can't either praise the Thistle fans highly enough. They gave us fantastic backing all afternoon and I hope we can get that kind of backing for the rest of the season."
"I had to take Stephen McKeown off early in the second half as he was struggling with a niggly hamstring injury. It's obviously far too early to say whether he will be fit enough to play against Queen of the South next Saturday. We will just have to assess things over the course of the week which is exactly what we will need to do with Liam Buchanan as well."
