Hartley hails 'captain's performance' from two-goal Harkins

Dundee boss Paul Hartley paid tribute to Gary Harkins for inspiring their 4-2 win over Partick Thistle.

Harkins won a penalty and helped himself to a double in the Premiership clash at Firhill.

The Dundee playmaker was handed the captain's armband, following Kevin Thomson's departure and with James McPake out with a long-term injury.

Hartley said: It was a real captain's performance, I thought he was outstanding.

His ability has never been in doubt, it's just been the other side that people have questioned.

But you saw that he worked hard for the team and he took on the responsibility well.

He's had the armband throughout the season at times, but he's at that age now where he has to take responsibility.

If he keeps playing like that, he's a joy to watch at times.''

Dundee confirmed Thomson had left the club by mutual consent'' on Friday, but Hartley revealed it was the midfielder's own decision to quit.

He added: It was Kevin's decision, he came to us at the start of the week and asked if he could leave.

He just felt, with the injuries that he did have, that he couldn't handle the top-flight football.

We respected his decision, he's not played a lot of games, he's not trained a lot.

I think it was just frustration with him, nothing else.

We didn't want him to go. It was a total shock when he came in to see me on Tuesday.

We tried to tell him to sleep on it for a night, but he had made his decision and we did respect that decision.''

Dundee raced into a three-goal lead in the first 15 minutes through a Kane Hemmings penalty and goals from Harkins and Greg Stewart.

Harkins then struck again shortly before the break, with goals from David Amoo and Kris Doolan scant consolation for Thistle, who saw Liam Lindsay sent-off.

Hartley admitted he feared the match could have been abandoned due to heavy snow.

He said: When we go three up, I think there is always a worry that the game could possibly get abandoned. Thankfully the game went ahead.

The conditions were tricky, but I thought we managed them better.''

Thistle boss Alan Archibald said: We had a poor, poor start and we just didn't recover from it.

Credit to Dundee, I thought they were good, but we made them look even better and we got punished for our mistakes.

There weren't any pass marks throughout the whole team.

I don't want to take anything away from Dundee, but we were miles off it.''