Late equaliser buzz for Saints Cowie’s relief at earning Perth point
Ellie May Cowie’s late heroics rescued a point for St Johnstone Women against Partick Thistle.
And the Perth striker admits the feeling of jubilation when finding the back of the net is one that will never grow old.
Saints were trailing 3-2 heading into the final five minutes of Sunday afternoon’s Scottish Women’s Premier League 2 fixture on the McDiarmid Park astroturf.
But Cowie was in the right place at the right time to accurately guide a left-footed strike low into the bottom corner after a scramble in the box.
“Scoring a late goal was really great for me personally,” Cowie explained to the PA. “We realised that we needed to do something to change the game.
“The corner came in and someone has knocked it on. Thankfully the ball landed nicely for me and I’ve hit it with my left foot.
“Luckily it’s managed to avoid three defenders so I was very happy, especially because I knew how little time was remaining to get a point.
“There was a bit of shock that it went in. It’s an amazing feeling scoring an important goal in a game.
“It really means a lot to me and to the team. Seeing how happy the girls were after the goal was really good for me.
“We even tried to push to get that winner, but were all happy enough in the end.
“To manage to get that draw in the end was really good and does show how resilient we can be.”
Saints really should have been out of sight after engineering an early two-goal lead thanks to strikes from Jade McDonald and Rebecca McGowan.
But the visitors soon flipped the script and Cowie added: “I thought we started the game well and we were pressing high.
“The two early goals really helped us and set the standard. At two up I think we thought that the game was ours.
“But losing a goal right before halftime made our levels drop a little bit.
Then coming out for the second half we were ready to put the game to bed.
“Again they have scored and everyone’s head went down. The equaliser slowed us down in everything that we wanted to do.
“We weren’t playing passes and started to look to go long constantly. When Partick went ahead, it was about getting anything we could from the game.”
Jason McCrindle’s Saints face their penultimate game of the season this Sunday and travel for a fixture with title challengers Hamilton Accies.
“It’s the last away game of the season for us,” Cowie said. “We took the lead against them at home and I think I scored after about 15 seconds.
“But this game is going to be really tough, we know it is. They are competing for the league with Hearts, so will want to win their last two games.
“For us, it’s about taking as many points as we can. We all believe we can take more than just a point.
“It’s important to finish well. You don’t want to be ending the season thinking what you could have done differently.
“Finishing on good results and a good run helps going into the next season, even though it is a few months away. There’s nothing stopping us from doing that.”