DEJECTION is not a feeling Partick Thistle have felt for some time.
There have been few lows at Firhill of late after the Glasgow side secured the first division title last term and then picked up where they left off with some promising displays in the opening weeks of the new SPFL Premiership campaign. For the first time since January, though, they head into a fixture on the back of a league defeat after succumbing to Motherwell on Saturday.
The game in question is a League Cup second round tie against Cowdenbeath tonight. The visit of the Championship side may not attract the same level of attention as Thistle's recent top-flight forays but it is no less important to those at Firhill.
"Losing is never nice and the manner of the defeat was hard for us to take," said Conrad Balatoni, the Thistle defender. "The performance wasn't like us. We are still confident going into the Cowdenbeath game, though. We will take [the defeat by Motherwell] on the chin and move on and work to keep getting better."
Thistle became all too familiar with Cowdenbeath on their way to the title last season, with a Ramsdens Cup meeting adding to their regular league fixtures, one of which was abandoned. Thistle know what to expect from Colin Cameron's side, then, and Balatoni is eager to make that count in the cup.
"Since I have been with Thistle, we have never had a good League Cup or Scottish Cup run, which is a bit of a shame," he said. "It would be nice to go on a run. The further you go, the bigger the games get and you play different teams at different places."
Cowdenbeath might be thankful for an evening somewhere different, too, since they have endured an uncomfortable start to the new term - losing their opening three league fixtures. "The game at Firhill gives us a break from the league and it is a game in which nothing is expected from us," said Colin Cameron, the Fife club's player-manager.
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