PARTICK Thistle will defend Rod McDonald who was cautioned during their game against Rangers on Saturday for blessing himself. The player was later booked for lunging into a tackle against John Brown and was dimsissed, but the Firhill club's chairman Jim Oliver said he will look at a film of the first incident in which McDonald, who scored Thistle's goal in the 2-1 defeat, blessed himself as he left the pitch at half-time, and then make contact with the SFA.

McDonald and the team manager, Murdo MacLead, were called to the referee's room during the interval and it was pointed out that the police had been alerted by some Rangers fans who saw the player make his gesture. The police took no action, but the referee did, although McDonald appeared unaware he had been cautioned.

When Jim McGilvray booked him for his challenge on the Rangers player McDonald turned away as though to continue playing and then looked surprised when he realised he had to leave the pitch. It seems McDonald may have blessed himself after he scored his goal, but it was an action which could lead to his suspension.

Presumably the referee, who missed one or two other incidents, felt the player's gesture might have incited some troubleamong Rangers' support, but MacLeod and his chairman took a different view. ``Rod blesses himself as he goes on and off the pitch in every game,'' the manager said. ``He does it in reserve matches also.

``I've never seen anyone in Italy, for instance, being cautioned for doing that and so far as Rod is concerned it is normal practice for him. It's at times like this you know which city you are in.''

Oliver, like most people inside Firhill, didn't see McDonald bless himself, which tends to suggest it was hardly designed to be inflammatory, but he stressed he would be defending the player. ``I understand that after he scored the goal he crossed himself,'' Oliver said, ``and I don't think he realised that constituted a yellow card.

``If he was being booked for his action after his goal then he should have been cautioned at that time, in 35 minutes, and not 10 minutes later. Why this should constitute a foul in football is beyond me, but because we have the Rangers' situation here it seems a different set of rules are invoked.

``I have to be guarded about what I say, but it is ridiculous.''

Thistle had another player, Billy McDonald, dismissed in the final minutes after he had become involved in an exchange with Paul Gascoigne, who scored both Rangers' goals. The pair had tussled on a few occasions during the game and in fact, both should have been punished just after the interval when they came together in a flurry of arms and legs.

McGilvray took no action at all, when quite clearly he should have. One can only wonder if he realised that by booking McDonald or worse, by sending him off, Gascoigne, too, would have deserved a yellow card at least. The Rangers player had already been booked for having celebrated his first goal by leaping an advertising board.

In booking Gascoigne for that the referee was seen as churlish and officious and the later incident left McGilvray open to question. ``There were implications in that instance,'' was all Oliver was willing to say, but while Rangers' supporters will bleat that Gascoigne is a marked man it seems to me referees are still afraid to take proper action to make him curb the use of his arms.

We now have a situation of having a player facing suspension because of religious beliefs when wild tackles and blatant foul play can go unpunished. If McDonald is in the habit of blessing himself regularly then there is absolutely no case for any referee or football authority to punish him.

It is not McDonald's fault Glasgow is a city divided by religious bigotry and he shouldn't have to change his ways just because Rangers are in opposition.

The game's disciplinary system has no avenue for appeal, but if the circumstances in which a player is booked are unusual enough the disciplinary committee can listen to others and act accordingly.