Jaggernaut

Yes, the defence has been pretty much rock solid of late. That at least bodes well for the future, along with the continued promise of some of the youngsters.

Same here.

Jaggernautess made the "bonkers" comment this morning when watching an interview with a nice couple who are foster parents and devout Christians, who have refused to make a positive statement somewhere (not sure where) in support of gay people. Result?: They are now barred from fostering children. Gay couples, on the other hand, who presumably would be positive towards homosexuality in discussions with children, may foster and even adopt children. Does Jaggernautess have a point?

That technicality should get him off the hook. I never watch the programme, but caught the "reprise" last night for some reason. What a sick society we live in!

In fact the finger should be getting pointed towards the manager. He's the one who signs the players and then keeps playing them in spite of our inability to mount any serious challenge for promotion season after season, or to win more than the occasional (very occasional) away game season after season.

I concede!

For anybody interested in the academic side of this kind of thing, check this out: http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.a.hill/Attrill_et_al_2008.pdf Interestingly, the advantage to wearing predominantly red seems only to work for home matches. And clearly there are exceptions to the overall pattern. For example the Red Lichties aren't exactly unbeatable at the Stadium of Licht. I'm not aware of any research showing that red-clad goalkeepers have a higher success rate of stopping penalties (or of penalty-takers missing against them).

Jesus, let's keep signing the same old duds and keep hoping we avoid relegation every year. So what if Rowson is fit and has pace? More often than not he does nothing for us, I would say. McNamara and Donnelly might be able to play a bit, but they offer us nothing that younger players who are just as fit are likely to do. These guys are basically finished, and should be retired asap. There.

Or their real team...... Engerlund.

This whole "unbeaten" thing bemuses me. Three draws might amount to being unbeaten, but such a "run" is worth no more than one win and two defeats. Either of those would amount to collecting only one third of the points up for grabs, something that we're just managing to do by the skin of our teeth. Since the season started we've taken 7 points from a possible 36 away from home. How about this: Ross County hadn't won a single match in 10 attempts before our game against them on Saturday, yet we set out to contain them, rather than attempting seriously to win. And some people are saying that we came away with a decent result..... Is there a head-scratching emoticon?

Is it all that good?

Oh that's right. Sorry! Was too busy ranting to let reality into my world.

That should bring the crowds flocking back. You're right, I think. But that doesn't mean that what we're being subjected to most weeks, and in fact season after season in away matches, should be considered as what Thistle (and the fans) should be aspiring to.

One of the many in this tightly knit community.

Robertson, Rowson, Cairney, Donnelly, and I'd probably now include Grehan, who just doesn't look up to it.

We got 1 point, they got 3.

It seems to me that there are a few heads-in-the-sand perspectives on here. We're a team that's going nowhere in the league, basically out of all competitions, and that still needs to ensure victories to be sure of avoiding the relegation play-off position. I make it 3 victories in our last 12 league matches, and facing the best team in the league on Saturday (so, a nice one to win!), with little sign that we're capable of getting any kind of sequence of wins on the go. For next season I'd get rid of all of the over-30s with the exception of Archie. Cue the "Rowson is fantastic" protests. Is he inspirational? Nah. Does he create openings? Nah. Does he score? Nah. Agreed he's good at running around and tackling guys, but so are many others. Donnelly? If he's retained again as a player next season my heart will truly sink.

We lost further ground to Dundee, who look likely to overtake us soon (in spite of giving us a 25-point start) and our position with regards to Ross County remains exactly the same. Albion and County play each other tomorrow, so one of them may gain 3 points. Cowdenbeath might also pick up at least a point tomorrow. If we lose on Saturday, then it really is a battle to avoid the relegation play-off spot, and my question again is: should we trust the oldies who have got us there in the first place to magically get us out of it? I wouldn't! And how come we can blood a youngster who's on loan from another team and who has no real reason to care about what happens to Thistle, but we shouldn't give our own youngsters a chance?

Remembered another couple of players who impressed yesterday. Big right back (Garry?), and smaller blond left-back, and tall no. 4 (red hair). Also a wee blond guy wearing I think no. 10. Those four looked a bit of a cut above the rest of the outfield players, though nobody looked especially weak. They just lost it a bit in the 2nd half. A few of the East Stirling guys were giants.

In one-to-ones against us this season they are about the same as us. I know what you mean, and the idea that we should even be contemplating whether we are stronger than such teams is deplorable. But our league position and our points total tell the truth.

Except that our precarious league position is precisely due to not playing the youngsters, but instead relying week after week on several so-called first-team squad members who are patently no longer fit for purpose. If we get really into a relegation dog-fight would you bet money on the current first-team to get us out of it? I certainly wouldn't.

Don't want to watch.

East Stirlingshire 1 - Thistle 3 Thistle were 2-0 up at half-time, two good goals coming from some slick passing down the left flank. In fact there was a lot of good movement off the ball and fast passing in the first half. But that all seemed to collapse when the 2nd half started, and E.S. started to look the much better team. They deservedly pulled one back, and were still dominating when Thistle's 3rd arrived - some controversy about whether the Jags player kicked it out of the keeper's hands or not. But the goal was given, and the rest of the game more or less fizzled out. In fact the women's hockey match next door was starting to attract more attention from the crowd. Don't know the players' names, but the Thistle keeper was excellent, with several good saves in both halves, and good kick-outs and throws. Unprotected for the goal. I think the Stirling Uni. artificial pitch is supposed to be one of the best around, but even so I certainly wouldn't fancy sliding into a tackle on it, and neither did most of the players, it looked like.

McCall still greetin': http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/football/sfl/2011/02/27/sfl-ross-county-0-partick-th-0-86908-22953470/ Maybe if he tried attacking for once then he wouldn't have to keep praising the defenders and the keeper.

Some excellent photies.