Thistle’s spirit delights gaffer
Campbell satisfied with manner of late victory
to push on, there’s no doubt about that, but the boys had struck the post before that so I felt we were unlucky not be level.
“We went with three up top and made the advantage count, so I’m really pleased with the application and attitude the boys showed.
“It was a great penalty from Barry and I’m really pleased to see Aaron Connolly get a deserved goal to win it for us. It leaves us in a good position with three games still to play to catch up with the rest.
“We’ve only lost one game and we started the season well, but there’s still a lot of games to be played.”
Thistle took the lead on the halfhour mark when an inswinging corner from Devine was knocked into the path of Faulds and he clipped the ball through the keeper’s legs to give Thistle the lead.
Two minutes into the second half Albert found themselves level when Hamilton played the ball through to Scott and he muscled his way past Ryan Carnwath before firing the ball past Jags keeper Chris Treacy.
The hosts then took the lead in 61 minutes when Hamilton hammered the ball beyond Treacy.
With 10 minutes remaining Murdoch received a second booking for a poor challenge on Faulds and six minutes later Faulds was again the victim when Baptie gave away the penalty for Devine to sweep in the equaliser. The Jags won it when Treacy lofted a long ball into the penalty area, which deflected into the path of Connolly to slot past the keeper.
Royal Albert will feel hard done by and with 11 yellows and two red cards flashed during the game, a pedantic referee made this game look like a dirty one, when it was far from it.
Meanwhile, Campbell was delighted with the efforts of two youngsters, Kyle MacDonald and Chris Callaghan, who received a late call-up to the squad with Phil McCabe and Stuart Davidson dropping out.
He said: “I’d like to say a special thanks Archie McTaggart from our academy team for helping us out. We had a couple of call-offs and I asked Archie if he could help us out with a couple of their boys.
“Kyle MacDonald and Chris Callaghan came into the squad and got some game time. I thought they did really well and it’s something we will look at doing more often.”
Thistle’s attention now turns to the third round of the Junior Cup. On Saturday the Showpark side host North Superleague outfit Culter, kicking off at 1.45pm.
Campbell added: “If you look at their run in the cup, they’ve had two good away wins and only lost twice in six games in the league, so we know it will be a tough game.”
P Glasgow Perthshire 9 Gartcairn 9 Port Glasgow Jnrs 7 EK THISTLE 6 Vale of Leven 9 St Anthony’s 7 Carluke Rovers 8 Lanark Utd 8 Dunipace 5 Ashfield 6 Royal Albert 8 Newmains Utd 8 W 7 6 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 0 D 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 L GD PT 2 16 21 3 14 18 2 8 15 1 3 13 4 1 13 2 1 11 4 -3 10 3 2 9 2 -3 7 3 -6 7 6 -15 4 7 -18 1