Thistle and Hamilton settle for point apiece

Partick Thistle boss Alan Archibald felt their 2-2 draw with Hamilton was more like a basketball match as both managers bemoaned familiar failings.

Both teams went all out for victory in an entertaining tussle at Firhill, but their managers were more concerned with an inability to see out matches.

Accies scored a deserved 14th-minute opener - their eighth in nine Ladbrokes Premiership games - when Massimo Donati headed home Ali Crawford's corner. But they again failed to hold on to their lead as they dropped their 16th point of the season from a winning position.

This time their lead only lasted eight minutes before Ryan Edwards tapped home after Georgios Sarris had headed a clearance against Donati, and both teams drove forward for periods before Thistle defender Liam Lindsay headed home two minutes before the break.

The Jags looked like holding out, but they lost a crucial late goal at home for the third time this season when Donati's pass played in substitute Eamonn Brophy to provide a classy finish in the 83rd minute.

Archibald said: ''It just looked wide open. You wouldn't think the two managers were centre-halves. It looked like a basketball match at times, it was frantic. Credit to Hamilton, they will always keep coming at you. It was two good performances offensively, but defensively really poor.''

Archibald bemoaned his side's failure to add to their lead when Kris Doolan failed to convert just after the break.

''If we take one of those chances at 2-1, it takes the spirit and the wind out of Hamilton,'' he said. ''We didn't take our chances and then we don't look like seeing the game out. It becomes a nervousness. I have been through it before a few years ago when we lost late goals and it creeps in and you have got to be strong. You have got to have a mindset that you will not let them pass and make sure decision making is right.''

Hamilton would be top of the league if they had held on to all of their leads this season and manager Martin Canning was only partially appeased by their late equaliser.

''It's another one of those games for us where we go 1-0 up and with the opportunities we are creating we can probably find ourselves further ahead,'' he said.

''I'm standing saying the same thing to you. You could take my interview from last week and the week before - I'm just repeating myself. We are playing well, creating lots of opportunities and we are not winning three points, which we need to do. Today is slightly different, we have gone behind and managed to come back, so it feels like a better point, but again I think we have got to take three. In that first 20/25-minute spell we could be two or three nothing up and the game is dead and buried. We don't do that, we keep teams in the game.''