Naismith is numbed by a spot of bother
While St Mirren’s plunge to t he Championship is all but sealed, Firhill provided the location for one last refereeing controversy to hit the Paisley club in the top flight.
By t he end of Saturday’s demoralising defeat at Partick Thistle — one which leaves the Buddies clinging on to Premiership survival by their f i ngertips — frustration flowed through their ranks.
Moments before the interval and with the match goalless, St Mirren defender Jason Naismith darted to meet a long ball, only to tumble to the ground in the Thistle penalty box under pressure from home defender Conrad Balatoni.
Cue mass protestations from all in black and white — but referee Craig Thomson and his assistant strolled on unimpressed.
it is no secret that lowly Saints have felt aggrieved on more than one occasion throughout this campaign by refereeing ‘mistakes’.
And while they may have had a case in Maryhill, it was a deserved defeat f or a side that rarely threatened Alan Archibald’s men, who secured their own survival.
Naismith (right), however, was astounded his team wasn’t given the chance to take the lead from the penalty spot.
‘i went shoulder-to-shoulder with Conrad, got in front of him and he caught the back of my legs and i went down,’ said Naismith.
‘how the linesman can’t see it 10 yards away is baffling. i think the referee wanted to give it, but no decision was made between them.
‘Maybe if they had a wee bit of communication between them they could have sorted it out. But there just seemed to be a whole lot of confusion and they never gave it.’ When asked if the match could have turned in St Mirren’s favour had the penalty been awarded and converted, he added: ‘Definitely. it would have given us something to hold on to. it was a goal-scoring opportunity.
‘ Obviously, you don’t want Balatoni to be sent off but he would have had to go. it was a big moment and a big call.
‘it doesn’t surprise me the linesman was running away at the end of the game trying to get into his dressing room.
‘We didn’t get a chance to speak to the officials about it — they scurried away. it was quite embarrassing, but it summed up the whole day for us.
‘i don’t think we can go blaming referees because, at the end of the day, our performance was not good enough, either.
‘if you don’t get a decision like that, we need to react to it — but we didn’t do well enough.’
With Thistle frustrated in the
first half, it took 68 minutes for St Mirren’s resistance to be broken, Ryan Stevenson heading home from Kallum higginbotham’s cross.
Gary Teale’s men were put to the sword further through substitute Kris Doolan’s close-range finish and Steven lawless’ sweetly-struck 20-yard shot in stoppage time.
Naismith cut a dejected figure as he reflected on his team’s dreadful second-half performance and, in general, Saints’ season.
‘i thought we were very lethargic,’ admitted the 20-year- old. ‘Our passing was aimless.
‘ it was like an end- of- season match, which shouldn’t happen. We had to win every game. We have not been good enough. Our start to the season was abysmal and we’ve not really had a style of play.
‘From December onwards, we picked up a bit but we lost Kenny (Mclean) to Aberdeen and we never really replaced him. We also didn’t replace the players who left last season.’
For Thistle, it was three goals and three points to secure their third successive season in the Premiership.
First, though, they have ambitions of finishing as high up the table as possible.
‘if we get a result next week at hamilton then we’re only two points behind them — so the aim is to catch them in seventh place,’ said lawless.
‘Our first aim was to get the result here and make us safe. So, hopefully, that will give us a bit more freedom to play.
‘We have been a bit inconsistent this season and we felt we could have been higher up the league. We just need to win as many games as possible between now and the end of the season.’
The lively midfielder — one of several Thistle players whose deals expire in the summer — is hopeful talks this week will lead to him staying at Firhill.
‘We were waiting to confirm that we were safe (from relegation),’ he added. ‘i’ll sit down with the gaffer this week and, hopefully, we can get something sorted.
‘We feel we have underachieved this season but, if we keep the nucleus of the team and maybe add one of two, i believe we could do a lot better.’
“How the linesman didn’t see it is baffling”