Raith Rovers - After Match Reaction
Saturday 16th January 2010
There was no one in the Thistle camp this afternoon that was unaware that our performance today hadn't been god enough, not least Thistle manager Ian McCall.
www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with the manager in the gloom outside Stark's Park, the gloom matching perfectly the manager's mood.
"Today's game was a very important one for us and we are incredibly disappointed that we didn't produce the performance that would have earned us the three points. I thought that we were the better side in the first half but we didn't perform well at all after the break."
"Throughout the season I've been proud of the quality of football that we have produced but winning football matches isn't always about producing good football and today's game was evidence of that. It didn't help that was had players missing today that have a real physical presence which would have helped us on a difficult pitch but really even allowing for that our performance wasn't good enough."
"The players have to learn from today's experience and realise that in the second half of the season, when the pitches aren't in as good condition as they were at the start of the season, that there will be more games like today's. The players need to realise that winning matches isn't something that comes easy and that they need to fight to earn victories. Today we didn't do that and the things that you need to do to win games like making sure you get the second ball we just didn't do."
"As I've said it's not always the ability to play good football that wins you points. Take the Thistle team that won the First Division title in season 2001-02. That wasn't the best footballing side in the word but by god did that side fight for each other."
"It could be that we will have to change our system in the second half of the season and give thought to the personnel we deploy on a match day."
As mentioned above we had a few players missing this afternoon because of injury and the manager was able to give us the up to date news on the injury front.
"Steve Lovell and Ian Maxwell should be okay for next week's game against Dunfermline, as should Martyn Corrigan. Stephen McKeown is a still a couple of weeks away yet and we have the Inverness game pencilled in as a potential return for Stephen. Jamie Adams loan ends tomorrow and will return to Kilmarnock but he would be facing about 4 weeks on the sidelines in any case."
