East Kilbride Thistle interim manager Alan Paterson insists THREE goalkeepers wouldn’t have stopped Yoker’s clinching goal that sent his Jags crashing out of the Junior Cup on Saturday.
The Showpark side were very much in the contest at Holm Park and chasing an equaliser when Shaun Gallagher unleashed an unstoppable strike in the 86th minute to earn a 3-1 win for Yoker, who play in West of Scotland Conference C alongside the Jags.
A double from McDonald either side of Cole McIntyre’s strike for Thistle had the hosts in front going into the final stages before Gallagher put the final nail in the coffin for Paterson’s hope of reaching the fourth round.
And he said: “With 10 minutes to go we thought we had to go for it, but their boy hits an absolute wonder strike. I could have put three goalkeepers on that and they still wouldn’t have saved it. It was an absolute screamer.
“That just absolutely killed us. It’s disappointing because it was a chance for us to get through. The preparation was good and we trained well on the Thursday.
"We had a really strong bench and I felt quietly confident because we’d playing well and scoring goals. The first half an hour I thought we were the better side, but they’ve hit us with a sucker punch on the break.
"It was a well-worked goal. We scored just before half-time and I thought that would give us a chance to regroup, but one of their players got injured, which held the game up.
“We ended up playing a few minutes of injury time and they scored in the 47th minute for 2-1, so it became a completely different team-talk.
“In the second half we changed the formation a wee bit and went a bit more attack-minded. We were forcing a few corners and putting a bit of pressure on, but we just ran out of ideas.
“It wasn’t like us because we had been creating good chances in recent games. We looked a bit flat and we tried to change it three or four times.”
Thistle now host Wishaw on league business this Saturday and reckons their cup exit will act as a wake-up call after some good results of late.
Paterson added: “I said to the boys after the game that we are probably a few months ahead of where we thought we’d be at this stage, so maybe this a wee reality check to tell us we are not quite the full package yet.
“Wishaw will be tough, but we’ve got a run of home games coming up now and we want to make that count.”
Kick-off at the Showpark is 2pm.
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