One team in Glasgow Partick Thistle

A fringe Thistle side featuring a few more trialists travelled to take on Albion Rovers at Cliftonhill tonight. Read on for the details.A crowd of around 3-400 turned up on a beautiful evening for a game of football in Coatbridge tonight. Thistle lined up with Hinchy in goals, Boyd and Lennon in central defence and trialists on both backs. Strachan on right wing, Murray on left wing and McStay and another trialist in the middle of the park. Chaplain and Buchanan were the strikers.

Thistle dominated this match in the first half and were in front very quickly after Murray’s cross from the left wasn’t cleared properly by the Rovers defence and it fell to Buchanan whose shot looked to have been saved on the line, but luckily the ref gave the goal.

Two minutes later Buchanan notched his second when he took advantage of a series of blunders from the very insecure Rovers keeper and the Jags striker beat him to the ball and slid home the second goal from a tight angle.

Rovers tried to get themselves back into the game and had a little pressure but the closest they came to scoring was when a corner wasn’t cleared and Rovers no. 8 sent a volley across the goal that was only narrowly wide.

Thistle continued to dominate though with McStay being very impressive in midfield creating the chances for Chaplain and Buchanan, the latter running riot in the Rovers defence but just unable to notch up his hatrick. He had a great shot saved after a nice through ball from McStay. And five minutes later he set up Chaplain, and after his shot went behind from a corner, the same player headed narrowly over the bar.

Buchanan again came close just after the hour from the same tight angle he scored his second goal from, but this time the keeper was up to the task before Strachan summed up his performance in a nutshell, skinning three players down the right, but delivering a rather pathetic cross. However, in general he was very active and created some good opportunities.

Murray and Chaplain both had a couple of further chances before the end of the half but couldn’t beat the keeper, while at the other end, Boyd delivered a very confident performance along with Lennon in centre defence only restricting Rovers to a couple of tame shots from outside the box.

So 2-0 at halftime, and excellent reviews to the Rovers snack shack for providing a really good bovril. Firhill caters take note!

In the second half Thistle weren’t as dominant, but we still had the majority of the chances, McStay having some nice shots from outwith the box along with Buchanan being very impressive. Rovers had very few chances. One of them being a freekick in the middle of the second half. Didn’t trouble Hinchy though, who had a fairly quiet night.

The Jags introduced a few U19 players as subs during the second half and changed into a 4-3-3 with Strachan moved up as a striker supported by Chaplain and u-19 player.

Near the end Rovers subbed their keeper and the new man almost blundered but was fortunate Thistle weren’t able to take advantage of his error. Then it was Thistle’s turn to sub the keeper giving Samushonga his debut, but his gloves barely got dirty and the game finished 2-0.

Quite an entertaining game with plenty of chances and all three trialists who started did enough to merit another look, with the left back in particular playing well.