Substitute Doolan’s double header delight
PARTICK THISTLE boss Alan Archibald believes there’s a mini-season under way for his team.
Today the Jags are sitting proudly in sixth place and would love to stay there.
Claiming that precious spot in the top six would bring a huge amount of prestige to the club and a welcome financial boost.
However, knowing they’d be completely safe from any relegation worries is even more important.
The Maryhill men are in the top half of the table but they’re still only five points above the play-off position.
Eight games between now and April 15 could decide Thistle’s destiny.
Archibald was delighted to see his men defeat Hamilton Accies but is doing his best to play down the importance of a top six finish.
He said: “I don’t think the top six thing matters. Teams will fall in and fall back out of it.
“We told the players before the match that this is the start of a miniseason for us.
“There were nine games to go and we just want to make sure we are there or thereabouts.
“Anybody outside the sixth position will want to put a run together.
“You just need a bit of consistency and hopefully we’ve turned around our home form because that’ s been poor.”
It was hard to know which side would emerge victorious after a truly abysmal first half of football.
Neither side could string more than a couple of passes together and there wasn’t a single shot on target.
Fortunately for the 3057 paying customers, things livened up after the break.
Thistle’s fortunes were changed by the introduction of firstly Kris Doolan and then Chris Erskine.
The two substitutes combined superbly to open the scoring.
Erskine crossed from the left and Doolan rose to head the ball past Woods.
A second and decisive goal came in the same manner with only the provider changing.
This time it was Callum Booth sending the ball over for Doolan to again find the net with his head.
He has now scored 97 goals for the Jags and the double took his season’s total to eight.
Accies’ boss Mar tin Canning felt his team’s midweek Scottish Cup exertions – when they beat Dunfermline on penalties – caught up with his side.
He is desperate to see some of his injured stars like Ali Crawford, Alex D’Acol and Gerg Docherty back in action.
He said: “We’ve been done by two crosses into the box that we just didn’t defend.
“I thought you could see after about 60 minutes onwards that we tired.
“We put so much into the 120 minutes we played in midweek.
“I thought that had a big part to play in the end result.”