THE winds of change appear to be blowing through Partick Thistle at last. The Firhill side may still have fallen to the foot of the Championship table but they overcame East Fife – and the troublesome gales that battered the Kingdom – to continue their resurgence by booking a Scottish Cup quarter-final berth.
Steven Anderson, part of St Johnstone's trophy triumph in 2014, again used his head as the Jags delivered a moment of inspiration to cut through the storm.
It was enough to ensure the Championship side posted a fourth consecutive victory in an unbeaten run of six games since the turn of the year. It was never going to be pretty but it was a case of job done on a day when Falkirk’s victory over Alloa Athletic consigned Jags to the relegation spot in the league.
“It was a difficult game,” admitted manager Gary Caldwell. “We knew it would be difficult because we know how good East Fife are, but the conditions made it even more difficult. It was a tough afternoon, but cup football is all about winning and we managed to win.
“I told the players not to let this opportunity pass them by. In your career, you don’t get many chances to get to the latter rounds of such a big cup competition, and this was an opportunity for us. Once you get to the quarter-finals there’s only eight teams left in it, so you never know.”
East Fife’s Irn-Bru Cup tie against Bohemians in Dublin was called off just seven minutes before kick-off last weekend because of a frozen pitch but, whilst that late decision was branded farcical, the conditions both these teams were made to play in at an exposed Bayview Stadium proved equally as ridiculous.
Gusts battered the one-sided stadium and, at times, made a mockery of the players’ attempts to play football on the pitch and the wind was certainly at the heart of the home side’s best opportunity, which arrived in bizarre fashion four minutes from the break.
Conor Hazard caught his own clearance of a Stuart Bannigan pass when the ball was blown back towards the on-loan Celtic goalkeeper, and was penalised by referee Don Robertson for a breach of the pass-back rule. However, Scott Linton could not find a gap in the Thistle wall from the indirect free-kick.
Both sides huffed and puffed to break each other down in a dour first-half. Home striker Rory Currie curled one shot over after some tricky footwork and the Fifers appealed for a penalty on two separate occasions without impressing the officials.
However, having withstood the most trying of the conditions before the break, the feeling spread that Thistle could prosper with the wind at the backs in the second half. They came within a whisker of the breakthrough on the hour mark but Miles Storey somehow struck the crossbar instead of the back of the net from a wonderful James Penrice cross.
From the resulting corner, though, Anderson attacked Craig Slater’s delivery with the most conviction and was rewarded with the winning goal.
“At times, I felt you couldn’t really tell who the Championship team was,” said East Fife manager Darren Young, whose side can at least look forward to Friday’s Irn-Bru Cup semi-final against Ross County after Bohemian pulled out of the competition following the events last week. “We went toe to toe with another full-time team and we put in another great performance.”
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