Partick Thistle Football Club

Those strange expressions that Thistle fans were wearing at full-time last night were smiles. Three consecutive 1-0 defeats had left Thistle fans with the pallor of a haunted man but that was most certainly not the case when the final whistle sounded last night. A fabulous Simon Donnelly goal 9 minutes from full-time earning Thistle only their second win at East End Park in the last 27 years.

Manager Ian McCall had just finished watching the match back on DVD when www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with him a little earlier this afternoon.

"I have to be honest and say that I thought that Dunfermline outplayed us in the first half. After getting a wee break to go 1-0 up though we've had a fantastic chance with Mark Corcoran at the back post to grab a second but we went in at half-time level at 1-1."

"The two changes that we made at the break, bringing on Stephen McKeown and Simon Donnelly, I thought worked really well for us and Chris Erskine also did really well when he came on later in the game. Although Dunfermline had two or three good chances in the second half I didn't think that they were able to cut us open at any time."

"In the last half an hour I thought that we were fantastic and showed great aggression. The all round desire to go on and win the game that the players showed in those 30 minutes was highly commendable. I think that the attitude that the players displayed demonstrated that they care about playing for Partick Thistle and they got the reward for that attitude when Simon Donnelly popped up to score a great goal with less than ten minutes remaining."

"It was a fantastic feeling when that goal went in and the way in which the players on the pitch, the coaching staff and the substitutes who hadn't come on or had been replaced during the game, celebrated that goal showed just how much it meant to all of us."

"As great as it was to win last night the funny thing is that we created a lot more chances in the matches that we lost 1-0 than we did last night. I've a horrible feeling that if we miss out on promotion by say three or four points that we are really going to regret how those particular matches went."

"Still, I think that the win last night will have instilled a lot of confidence ahead of a difficult game with Inverness on Saturday. If we were to win our next two home games then I might start to think that the impossible might just be possible but as things stand right now I think that Ross County, though the number of games they still have to play might go against them, and Inverness stand a great chance of winning the league."

 "No players reported in injured today as a result of last night's game which was good but we will take another look at things tomorrow before thinking about the team to play Inverness. With Inverness a big physical team Ian Maxwell will certainly come into contention as his height could be a real asset."