THERE are few tasks as futile for calling for a sense of proportion in football.
It is akin to expecting the contestants of Celebrity Big Brother to discuss the Kantian dilemma of morality and reason or to anticipate a bucolic stroll down Sauchiehall Street of a late Friday evening.
In short, football does reasonableness the way a circus ringmaster does dry understatement.
The hubbub surrounding Partick Thistle and Kilmarnock has its specifics. The Firhill side restrict winning runs in the SPFL Premiership to one. Kilmarnock have been struggling with Allan Johnston, their manager, loudly nominated for eviction by a section of fans.
A more sober gauge of the health of both clubs is to be found in the league table. Kilmarnock and Thistle may yet be invited into the panic room of a relegation struggle but they have put some distance between themselves and perdition.
Both sides would have hoped during pre-season for a top-sixth berth. Both sides, though, appreciate strongly the financial imperative of simply staying in the division.
A share of the points on Saturday did much to improve that ambition with Motherwell, Ross County and St Mirren all losing.
Thistle, too, will reflect on a match they could have won if they had taken chances when 1-0 up while Kilmarnock will gain confidence by fighting back and showing a cohesion and purpose that has been beyond them recently.
Thistle, of course, maintained that unwanted record of not winning back-to-back Premiership matches and Danny Seaborne spoke frankly of its impact.
"Maybe subconsciously it is in the lads' heads," he said. "But it isn't something that I think about. The press have caught hold of it, not myself. It is something that needs to be done if we want to go to where we want to go to."
He pointed out that four points - a win against Hamilton Academical at home followed by a draw at Rugby Park - was a more than a decent return. Friday's match against St Mirren at Firhill offers the opportunity to Alan Archibald's enterprising side to look ahead rather than peer anxiously behind them.
Kilmarnock will feel restored after defeat by Dundee, Celtic and Inverness Caledonian Thistle. After conceding an early goal to Ryan Stevenson, they came back into the game through goals from Josh Magennis and Manuel Pascali, only to be denied by a late equaliser from Frederic Frans.
Rory McKenzie, the 21-year-old whose unstinting application made him man of the match, was a focal point for a young Kilmarnock side who shrugged off early nerves and ignored the anxiety of the crowd to fight back to make a point in terms of both arithmetic and argument.
This observer's fears for Kilmarnock were heightened by a poor performance against Celtic at the beginning of the month. There was much more to encourage players, managers and, crucially, supporters on Saturday.
"We're disappointed in the dressing room, we feel like we've lost the game," said McKenzie. The equaliser from Frans came after a free-kick was defended poorly and this added to McKenzie's sense of frustration.
"Conceding the late goal and the way it happened, as it was a sloppy, means right now it feels like two points dropped," said the forward. "It's not a good point but a point is better than nothing."
The Kilmarnock fans have been increasingly angered by the team's performances but on Saturday they seemed to accept collectively that Johnston's side was performing with a will and with a strategy that caused Thistle problems for periods of a competitive match.
McKenzie responded quickly to the observation that the fans had been loudly criticising the team recently.
"Rightly so," he said. "We have not been good enough for the last couple of months but this was a lot better so hopefully the fans can get behind us. That will obviously help to win them round because it was a better performance."
For all the groaning about Kilmarnock's performances of late - much of it justified - Johnston can argue that his side are fives point off the top six and 17 points above the very bottom of the league.
This is a position that others would relish and that should ensure Kilmarnock play in the top flight for another season. The mounting, gathering danger to the Rugby Park side was that recent momentum was in a dramatically downward direction.
The point against Thistle has arrested this decline and invested the players and support with some belief.
After a bright start to the season, Kilmarnock's poor form has been linked to a bonus row.
McKenzie was asked if this had been a contributing factor. "Not really, to be fair, we don't really speak about that any more. It's long gone," he said.
"We'll speak about it again once it comes up at the end of the season I'm sure."
It is reasonable to suppose these talks will take place in the context of Kilmarnock as a Premiership club. But what has reason to with it?
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