Bouncebackability

Back when then Crystal Palace manager Iain Dowie used the term ‘bouncebackability’ he could never have imaged how popular the word would become. It does though give us a handy footballing term, one that applied to Partick Thistle tonight.

Dowie was pleased to see his word added to the dictionary

After Thistle’s 4-0 drubbing by Raith Rovers at the weekend a strong response was needed tonight against Berwick Rangers. The team did not respond as strongly as hoped though and wimpered to a 2-1 victory. But it was a victory nonetheless and was an important step with regards to bouncing back from the despair of Saturday’s defeat. Thistle lined up as follows:

Halliwell

Paton  Balatoni  Robertson  Boyle

Cairney  Donnelly  Rowson  Flannigan

Grehan  Buchanan

As I’ve touched upon it was not the msot inspiring of team performances as the team passed up a host of chances and conceded a sloppy goal from a corner. However, a powerful drive by Thistle’s MOTM Paul Cairney and a first goal in about 18 months for the hardest working player in the league David Rowson made up for this.

Rowson was well overdue a goal

Thistle are now through to the last eight of the competition. The Challenge Cup, as gaffer Ian McCall mentioned earlier has been a trophy which has always evaded Thistle and is probably our best chance of silverware this season so it will be interesting to see if the team can step up to the task and continue to progress through the tournament. Knowing Thistle when it comes to the Challenge Cup though, this seems pretty unlikely…

Thistle’s next opponents Dundee fared rather differently tonight, losing hilariously 4-1 to lower league Stenhousemuir. Despite this they’ll still probably beat us on Saturday. It’s a hard life being a Thistle fan, even when we win!

It's possible Gary Harkins' hat put his Dundee team mates off

This match will bring once again the return of Gary Harkins, who scored the only goal of Dundee’s opening league fixture of the season. This is sure to lead to a fiery atmosphere and we can only hope that the Jags can manage to stop Harkins using his skill to have too much of an influence on the game. Easier said than done.