SUPPORTERS leaving grounds early when their team are trailing is nothing new, but you couldn’t really blame Partick Thistle fans for heading to the exits in the closing stages when their side are winning these days.

Their old familiar failing of losing late goals seemed to have become a thing of the past as the season wore on, but it came back to bite them in catastrophic fashion on Saturday as they snatched a crushing defeat from the jaws of a crucial victory.

With just five minutes remaining in the match at Firhill, Thistle were leading through a first half Conor Sammon goal and probably should have been further ahead. But their failure to convert their earlier superiority into a match-winning advantage came back to haunt them in catastrophic fashion.

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With red and yellow jerseys retreating deeper and deeper as the clock ticked on, Dundee’s pressure finally told as Simon Murray grabbed a late double to turn the atmosphere in the home end on its head.

And Edwards now reckons that his side have it all to do if they are to claw themselves away from the bottom end of the table.

“It was hard to take, and it was very disappointing,” Edwards said.

“it’s probably evened itself out in terms of the game back at Firhill last time when we kind of robbed Dundee, and they’ve robbed us this time.

“It was a weird game. We played really well in the first half, it was probably one of the best games we’ve played both on and off the ball. We created a number of chances, and we were probably unfortunate to only be 1-0 up.

“It was a game of two halves really. I don’t know what it is. Dundee were always going to have a spell, but we changed our shape and we can’t deal with it.

“The two late goals killed us and now we have a mountain to climb.”

On the bright side for Thistle, their situation isn’t beyond recovery. They are sitting in tenth place, and play the two teams below them in the table in their next two matches.

On the other hand though, both of those matches are away from home, and with fixtures against Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs and in-form Kilmarnock also to come before the split, it will take an almighty effort from the Jags to improve their situation.

“We needed maximum points [on Saturday],” Edwards said.

“We now have two away games at probably the two toughest places to go in the division. They are going to be massively important. Ross County had a good result [against Hearts] and that shortens the gap again.

“Dundee are now pulling four points away from us, so it’s two cup finals, it’s massive.

“We never look over our shoulders or look too far ahead, we focus on ourselves, and at the moment in terms of points and position we’re still ok.”

On the other side of the coin, of course, was the euphoria among the Dundee players and their impressive travelling support, who for so long on Saturday looked to be suffering through their team’s performance with little prospect of reward.

Thistle dropping off early allowed them to finally build up a head of steam, and while Murray stole the headlines with his opportunistic brace, there was no doubting the impact that livewire substitute A-Jay Leitch-Smith had on proceedings.

And the 27-year-old Englishman is hoping that he has done enough to earn the chance to partner on-loan Hibs striker Murray when they take on Motherwell on Saturday, seeing real potential in the prospect of the two functioning as a pair.

“Simon Murray is lively, runs around a lot and is very busy, he’s a good player,” said Leitch-Smith. “I think there is potential for a partnership there, we have trained well together. It will obviously take a few training sessions to get an understanding, but there is potential there.

“He said he thought he was never going to score because he had a few chances, but I am buzzing for him.

“It’s massive for us. It drags us a bit further away from teams around us and hopefully we can push on.”