Raith Rovers - Post Match Reaction
Saturday 12th September 2009
Once the dust had settled on a 1-1 draw with Raith Rovers there was much to talk about and debate over. Not the least the decision in the 41st minute to send off Liam Buchanan, the first red card of his entire playing career.
www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with a drained looking Thistle manager Ian McCall a short time after the final whistle and he was in no mood to pull his punches when discussing the game's most contentious incident.
"That was a decision that beggared belief. Liam Buchanan has beaten Mark Campbell to a high ball and Campbell has grabbed hold of Liam. All that Liam has done is try and get himself free of Mark Campbell and the Raith Rovers player has openly admitted as much. I don't know what Liam is supposed to do under these circumstances. Allow himself to be held back?"
"It was a decision that I thought changed the whole shape of the game. I thought that we were looking comfortable at the time and I know that I would say this but had the game remained at 11v11 then we would have won the game. It's another match in which we thought that we were the better side."
"Our second half performance made me very proud indeed and demonstrated the type of togetherness that we have in the squad. While under the circumstances we will take a point we still feel that it is a case of two points dropped. In general we have defended really well and it's a little disappointing that the goal that we did lose came about as the result of a piece of slack play at a set piece. The player who was responsible knows that he is responsible but he was otherwise absolutely outstanding."
Liam Buchanan will receive an automatic one game ban for his red card offence but early indications are that as he hasn't passed the suspension points threshold there will be no further ban.
It would appear that neither PTTV or their counterparts at Raith Rovers have managed to catch the controversial incident on tape so it would seem that Thistle have little chance of launching a successful appeal against Liam's red card.
