| Date | Saturday, 30 October 2004 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Scottish League Division 1 |
| Fixture/Score | Partick Thistle 4:0 Ross County |
| Venue | Firhill Stadium |
| Attendance | 2,898 |
| Referee | Craig MacKay |
| Comments | Match Report Report by Andrew Dickson for the Press & Journal. Partick Thistle 4 Ross County 0 Alex Smith refused to blame thoughts of the forthcoming Bell's Cup final for County's poor performance in their 4-0 defeat by Partick Thistle at Firhill. The Victoria Park side suffered its heaviest defeat of the season thanks to a double from Juan Ramon Escalas and second half goals by Adrian Madaschi and Armand One. Perhaps their minds had drifted further afield to next weekend's meeting with Falkirk, but manager Smith insists his man simply had a bad day at the office. He said: "It's hard to find a reason why we played as we did; we did not deserved to take anything from the match. "Now, though, we must dust ourselves down and use the week ahead to get ready for the final on Sunday. "Jimmy Bone and I have got to use our experience to get things going again. Sometimes you just have to put it down to having a bad day at the office and that was the case here." Thistle took the lead on 13 minutes when Escalas collected Billy Gibson's pass on the edge of the area then turned to fire high into the net. Four minutes later, the Spaniard doubled the lead. Steven Mackay was muscled off the ball by Leigh Himds on the touchline before the former Aberdeen forward cut back to Escalas, who side-footed into the net from close range. County tried to hit back, but were being restricted to shots from distance and although Charlie Adam and Sean Higgins hit the target, they could not find a way past home goalkeeper Kenny Arthur. Partick added a third seven minutes after the interval when Hinds crossed from the right to Madaschi who volleyed high into the net as the hosts threatened to run riot. They only added one more goal, though, and that came with two minutes remaining when substitute One surged into the box and drilled low under Stuart Garden from a tight angle. |
| Ross County | |
| Manager | Alexander (Alex) Smith |
| Starting 11 | 1: Stuart Garden, 2: Martin Canning, 3: James Lauchlan, 4: Mark McCulloch, 5: Don (JNR) Cowie, 6: Jamie McCunnie 1, 7: Charles Adam, 8: Steven MacKay, 9: Sean Kilgannon, 10: Gary McSwegan, 11: Sean Higgins 1 |
| Bench | 0: Colin Stewart, 0: Stuart Malcolm, 0: John Rankin, 0: Steven McGarry, 0: David Winters |
| Partick Thistle | |
| Manager | Gerry Britton & Derek Whyte |
| Starting 11 | Kenny Arthur, Billy Gibson 1, Andy Dowie, Grant Murray, Adrian Madaschi 1, Jamie Mitchell, Steve Fulton, Derek Fleming, Kenny Milne, Juan Ramon 2, Leigh Hinds |
| Bench | Neil Bennett, Andy Wilkinson, Manny Panther, Andy Ross, Armand One 1 |