LATEST MATCH SUMMARY

Mathieson
Lilley	Rowe	Aitken	McAllister
Townsley	Cleeland	Leslie	Boyle
Eadie		Mallan

SUBSTITUTES
Bailey -	Adams 20 mins	Patterson -

Queen's seem to be saving their best performances for away games, today at Firhill the team showed a desire and determination to win that has not always been evident in recent months.

The team had the enforced change of Jim Thomson suspended but this meant that the back four reverted to the familiar and reliable combination of Lilley, Rowe, Aitken and McAllister. The midfield saw the reinstatement of the Cleeland and Leslie double act whilst creativity was to be provided through Dennis Boyle wide left and Derek Townsley wide right. Up front the experience of Mallan and Eadie was relied upon.

The match was played on a surprisingly good pitch considering that other local games were being postponed and the reputation of the playing surface at Firhill. It started with Partick having the better of the first twenty minutes and creating a number of chances, mainly down their left flank, as you would expect with Des McKeown in their team. A combination of good goalkeeping from the solid David Mathieson, good defending particularly from Jamie McAllister and good fortune kept the Jags at bay. After twenty minutes Queen's had to make a change to the plans with Dennis Boyle suffering a strain and having to be replaced by ex-Jag Charlie Adams, fortunately this didn't seem to upset the tempo that Queens were setting too much. And infact within a minute of Adams coming onto the pitch his hard work resulted in Queen's taking the lead through Stevie Mallan who was on hand to bury his shot through a ruck of players into the back of the net.

Partick still carried a threat and in thirty eight minutes build up work down the left resulted in a Lauchlan drive being well parried by David Mathieson but the rebound being converted by Dunn. You would have expected both teams to settle for that at half time, but Queens are presently in no mood to settle for anything less than victories at the moment. Five minutes after the Partick equalise Queen's took the lead again, this time from a Jamie McAllister corner the ball was only half cleared from a goalmouth scramble and fell to Co-Player Manager George Rowe who drove it cleanly into the back of the net from the edge of the box. Half time.

Any Partick fans who held out a hope that their team would re-appear for the second half rejuvenated must have been disappointed as Queen's dominated almost the whole of the half and never looked like conceding an equaliser. Chances went abegging in front of the Partick goal with midfield maestro Derek Townsley being the tormentor in chief. Playing from his wide right position he had the benefit of receiving the encouragement of the whole of the travelling support for the second half, time and time again big Deggsie set off on his mazy runs turning former colleague Des McKeown inside out at times. In one run Deggsie's final shot looked netbound from the most acute of angles but hit the post and escaped from the danger area. In another run he improved his angle by cutting back in towards the penalty spot and then cheekily side-footed one just past the post as the Partick defence were waiting for a cutback.

The third goal when it did come was perfectly executed with Stevie Mallan beating the offside trap and latching onto a lobbed pass, he homed in on goal picked his spot and despatched an unstoppable shot into the back of the net from around eighteen yards. End of scoring but not the end of the action with Queen's almost adding a couple more towards the end of the game.

On the whole it was an excellent team performance with just about the right balance of guile and guts in midfield. After the match it was announced that George Rowe and Ken Eadie would continue in charge of team affairs until the end of the season, on this performance no one could argue with that.

Apart from the action on the field there were another couple of notable points, the Queen's travelling support sang their heads off from beginning to end and encouraged the team at all times. It must also be a rare thing to hear fans sing their appreciation of the opposing team's manager, Tommy Bryce is obviously still held in high regard by doonhamers. It is indeed a shame that the only time that the Partick fans even raised the quietest of sounds was to chant "What a load of rubbish", near the end, it looks like Tam's got his work cut out there!.

No players were booked today for bad tackles, however Rowe, Leslie, Cleeland and Mallan as well as Partick's McDonald were all booked for talking back at the referee!.