TAKEN in the context of this weekend’s events, this didn’t so much as hand the trophy to Kilmarnock as have the engraver testing out his Ks in anticipation.
Rumour has it Derek McInnes was an even happier man than Dougie Imrie by the end of this bruising, helter-skelter Cappielow encounter, which left Partick Thistle staring into the title race abyss and eight points behind the league leaders.
Robbie Muirhead was the hero, his late goal coming back to haunt his former team, and it could have secured Greenock Morton another year of Championship football. It might have done the same to Thistle.
“I thought for the first time five or six of them looked tired,” said Ian McCall, the Jags boss. “I don’t want to make excuses but they did look tired. We didn’t control the ball at all.
Having described Thistle’s attritional - read also “dull” - triumph over Inverness as “boring as hell”, McCall appeared to go all out to avoid a repeat and two of his changes delivered in the blink of an eye. It was Turner, the influential midfielder, who ran off to savour the elation of the away support but Alex Jakubiak deserved all the credit.
He’d already flashed an effort narrowly over Jack Hamilton’s crossbar when Ricky Foster’s long throw was allowed to bounce three times before finding its way into his stride. Galloping onto the ball, he shimmied to the byline, arrowed it across goal and it hit Turner in the midriff more than anything. Not that the Thistle fans cared, the yellow smoke of a flare rising into the Greenock sky as a couple of supporters spilled onto the pitch.
It had been a breathless start and the game stayed at that helter-skelter pace for much of it. Morton, looking to recover from their first real setback of the Dougie Imrie reign, sensed hesitancy down Ricky Foster’s left hand side and off they went, Gavin Reilly forcing Jamie Sneddon into a smart save before a couple of headed efforts evaded the crossbar.
Morton’s style under Imrie is both the team’s blessing and its curse At full flight, they had Thistle’s defenders looking around in sheer panic for reinforcements but the game needed someone in blue and white to get their foot on the ball.
A pass was sent into touch and Gozie Ugwu roared “settle down in frustration”. Kyle Jacobs sent another behind his man and took all of the momentum out of a dangerous looking attack. Iain Wilson did the same.
Despite this, the Ton were well in the game but still fortunate to just be one behind at the break. When Turner teased Hamilton and the goalkeeper took the bait, rushing off his line for a delivery he was alway second favourite for, Brain Graham’s header sailed only narrowly wide.
No one was going to mistake this for Manchester City against Liverpool but Imrie’s side kept coming in the second-half. The ever-dangerous Ugwu nodded a gilt-edged chance wide before Reilly somehow contrived to skew an effort wide of an open goal. As he looked to the heavens, it just felt like one of those days for Morton.
But Reilly would finally silence his demons. When Lewis McGrattan sprung the offside trap and was denied by Sneddon, he had enough peace of mind to find Reilly at the back post. This time, he made no mistake.
There was still time for a winner and Muirhead was the man, tapping home Wilson’s fine cutback and finding himself among a sea of Morton fans, who’d poured onto the pitch in jubilation.
“For us it’s a massive three points,” said Imrie, but he added: “I’m disappointed with the fans coming on the pitch. I know there are a lot of emotions but it just adds time on at the end.”
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