ON her way out of the stadium after having seen her team again lose a crucial goal in the final moments of a match they should have won, the female Partick fan looked to the heavens and groaned: "If we didnae have bad luck we'd have nae luck at all."
The poor woman had just seen Thistle throw away two points at Firhill with what was literally a slice of misfortune, the slice coming from the right boot of defender Conrad Balatoni to divert a wayward shot from Dundee substitute Phil Roberts past his own goalkeeper, Paul Gallacher.
Like many of his team's supporters, Balatoni held his head in his hands as the realisation sunk in that his error had gifted the visitors a point their play in the previous 89 minutes had barely deserved.
For his team-mate Kallum Higginbotham, though, the blame for Partick's failure to record their first back-to-back league victories in two seasons was more collective than individual. "It's down to the whole team," the winger said. "We had chances to get more goals but didn't take them.
"We were comfortable, our keeper barely had a save to make, then Conrad just stuck a leg out. On another day the ball would have gone wide. It was so frustrating but sometimes you need luck in football."
Thistle had made their own luck after 58 minutes of sterile play in which clear-cut chances had been at a premium, mainly due to both teams lining up with packed midfields and lone strikers. The logjam was broken by a piece of quick thinking from Partick's solitary frontman Ryan Stevenson. He rushed to grab the ball as it bounced out of play and took a quick throw-in to Higginbotham, then sprinted to collect a pass and send the ball low across the six-yard line, where the onrushing James Craigen hammered it into the net.
That persuaded Dundee manager Paul Hartley to commit his substitutes and change his formation from 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-2, with former Arsenal youth player Roberts and German-born forward Luka Tankulic coming on for Paul McGinn and Kevin Thomson. Play then swung from box to box yet it took the visitors until the 82nd minute to get an effort on target when a header from defender James McPake was clutched by Gallacher.
Dundee's enforced urgency to commit players forward suited this Thistle side, which looks more effective when playing on the counter attack. They had proved this a week earlier with a remarkable 4-0 win at Inverness. This time, though, their finishing was much less efficient.
Craigen passed up a chance to net his second when he sent his shot from the edge of the penalty box well over the bar. His fellow midfielder Gary Fraser came close three times, slicing the last of those opportunities wide when the ball fell to his left foot 10 yards out.
Higginbotham and Abdul Osman also tried, and failed, to seal the win for Partick. They then paid a painful price for their profligacy in front of goal when Dundee grabbed their last-gasp leveller.
"It's so frustrating that we just can't seem to put a run of results together" Higginbotham moaned afterwards. "We thoroughly deserved the win so it's definitely a case of two points dropped, not a point gained.
"We had chances on the break that we should have put away. Last week we got four goals but this time we only got one and, as it turns out, that wasn't enough. If you don't take your chances in this league you'll get punished.
"It wasn't a case of being pushed back or being dominated. Last season we sometimes faded in the last 10 minutes but that's not the case now. We have the quality to be in the top six but we seem to win one, draw one then lose one. We just need to put a run of results together."
For the time being, though, Partick and Dundee continue to reside in the Premiership's twilight zone, neither threatened by relegation nor threatening to challenge for a European spot.
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