Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald has commented in the past that when striker Kris Doolan finds himself out of the team, he always gets a reaction from the hitman.
It’s doubtful he has ever produced one quite as instantaneous as at Firhill last night though. Doolan climbed off the bench midway through the second-half with the game poised at 0-0, and moments later he had provided the cutting edge the game had sorely lacked with his first touch.
Fellow substitute David Amoo added a second late on with a cool finish to seal the points and move Thistle up to eighth in the table.
The goals looked unlikely to arrive for much of the game, despite plenty of effort from both sides and a willingness from both sets of players to get forward.
Danny Swanson was the first to threaten as he burst through two challenges in the middle of the park and brought the best out of Tomas Cerny from 25 yards, the Thistle keeper getting down low to his left to tip the powerful effort past the post.
The visitors were dealt a blow after 12 minutes as Murray Davidson had to leave the field after sustaining a head knock in an accidental collision, with Liam Craig the early replacement.
Aidan Nesbitt was making his first appearance for Thistle since joining on-loan from Celtic, and he linked up well with Stuart Bannigan to create the first opening for the home side after quarter of an hour, but his ball across to Mathias Pogba was cut out in the area by Tam Scobbie.
Swanson was looking the biggest threat at the other end, and another direct run from the midfielder saw the ball break to David Wotherspoon after a good tackle by Dan Seaborne, with the Saints playmaker fizzing a right-foot effort across goal and just wide of the target.
The impressive Nesbitt then took another pass from Bannigan before turning into space and getting a low drive away that was blocked on the six-yard line by Steven Anderson, but for the ninth Thistle game in their last ten it was goalless at the interval.
Pogba almost opened the deadlock at the start of the second half after taking a pass from Stevie Lawless well, but his half-volley was held by Alan Mannus, before Freddie Frans went even closer.
Again, Lawless was the provider as he got to the by-line and dinked a ball across that the Belgian defender attacked at the near post, but his effort was palmed up onto the face of the bar by the Saints keeper.
Swanson continued to be a thorn in the side of the home defence, and he surely would have tucked away Darnell Fisher’s looping cross to the back post had teammate Craig not have got in his way.
Wotherspoon’s shot on the turn inside the area then tested Cerny, the Czech keeper getting down well again to save.
Pogba then cushioned a clever header down into the path of Lawless at the other end, but his half-volley with the outside of his left boot was too close to Mannus.
It was to be Pogba’s last contribution of a decent performance on the night, but the big Guinean was to be upstaged by the man who replaced him.
All of thirty seconds after shaking his teammates hand, Doolan picked up on a high break of the ball after a challenge in midfield from Abdul Osman, muscled his way goal-side of the St Johnstone defence and arrowed a low left-foot effort across Mannus and into the net with 72 minutes on the clock.
As if to prove it wasn’t a fluke, another of Archibald’s substitutes put the icing on the cake with three minutes remaining as Amoo ran through the centre of the St Johnstone defence like a hot knife through butter, before calmly side-footing low into the corner of Mannus’s net.
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