Shaw has mettle to keep Killie on track
PERSEVERE. That’s the local motto down in Leith, where Oli Shaw served his footballing apprenticeship at Hibernian. Now he’s at Kilmarnock, it’s clear the 23-year-old striker hasn’t forgotten some old lessons.
This was his sixth outing for the Rugby Park outfit since signing from Ross County in the summer. In his previous five, he had either missed chances or been denied by decent saves time and time again.
Once again, this looked like being another afternoon to put down to experience when, after being denied by a good reaction block from Jamie Sneddon in the first half, he missed a penalty on 51 minutes and blazed the rebound over the bar.
Credit, then, to Shaw for clearly not letting the head go down. Indeed, after a freak own goal from Kevin Holt had given the visitors the lead, the former Scotland Under-21 cap produced a magnificent effort after latching on to a long ball that had boss Tommy Wright, his side now just one point behind Inverness at the top of the Championship, purring.
‘It was a top-class goal,’ said Wright. ‘If you see that in the English Premier League, they’d be raving about it because he’s under pressure and he fired it in the top corner.
‘It says a lot about his quality. I brought him here to score goals and he’s doing everything right — even outside of scoring — so far.
‘He was still bubbly after the penalty miss,’ said Wright. ‘He has been like that in all of his games. Like all good strikers, he just keeps going.
‘His movement is good and him and Scott Robinson play well together.’
Killie look too strong to stay in this league for long and were too smart for Thistle in the end. Yet, they had to weather an early storm.
Partick gave an early indication of intent with a shot from captain Ross Docherty being deflected wide after 24 seconds and almost broke through just eight minutes in when visiting keeper Zach Hemming smothered the ball at the feet of Zak Rudden.
Frustration over the way the game had started clearly took its toll on Wright with the Killie manager being ticked off and yellow carded by referee Willie Collum for booting the ball away.
However, after Hemming had been called into action again to save a low shot from Scott Tiffoney, Wright’s side finally began to get their act together and created the best chance of the first half just inside the half-hour.
Robinson showed lovely control to collect a long ball just outside the Thistle area and feed it inside to Shaw. He did the hard part by dancing past a couple of home defenders, but he was denied, in the end, by the outstretched left foot of goalkeeper Jamie Sneddon.
Killie then came close again in the dying seconds of the opening 45 with a Rory McKenzie corner causing consternation and Dylan McGowan heading over from close-range after an earlier effort from the away side had been scrambled off the goal-line.
Shortly after the restart, though, they would make the breakthrough — although not until they had missed that penalty.
Collum pointed to the spot after Robinson had gone over in the area under pressure from on-loan Rangers defender Lewis Mayo.
Shaw stepped up to take responsibility, but his initial attempt was blocked by Sneddon and his second effort from the rebound sailed high into the stand.
The Jags fans in those seats had barely stopped celebrating, though, when Dame Fortune brought them crashing right back down to earth.
Fraser Murray put in a low ball from the left and, with Robinson sniffing around for an opportunity, Richard Foster attempted to clear. However, the ball took an almighty deflection off Holt and trickled into the net.
Rudden did put a header wide from a good position for Partick before being replaced — with any hope of a home rally being snuffed out on 65 minutes.
The Jags’ defence failed to deal with a long ball from the Killie keeper and Shaw stole a march on everyone to run through, control the ball with his chest and bury a shot on the half-volley past Sneddon from the edge of the area.
‘I didn’t think there was lot in the game, but, on chances, Kilmarnock deserved to win,’ said Partick boss Ian McCall. ‘They were more streetwise.’