Tuesday 14th October, 2025 at 7:41pm

Queen’s Park   1             Partick Thistle                1

Partick Thistle secure bonus point thanks to 6-5 win on penalties.

A young Partick Thistle side, sprinkled with experience, picked up two points in their opening Glasgow Cup Group game thanks to a 6-5 success on penalties after a 1-1 draw, with Liam Dolan hitting the winning spot-kick against Queen’s Park at their Lochinch Training Complex.

Goalkeeper Lewis Budinaukas along with Luke McBeth in defence and the attack minded trio of Steven Lawless, Alex Samuel and Dan MacKay all started in a game where captain Matthew Falconer scored for the Jags after they found themselves a goal down early in the second half.

Budinauckas impressed early as he dived to his right to push away a Seb Drozd free kick from 19 yards with MacKay creating the first danger for Thistle when he shuffled his way down the left to win a corner with Queen’s goalkeeper Jack Willis rising to clutch Steven Docherty’s dead ball.

Docherty had a glimpse of goal on 20 minutes when Nick Lockhart slipped a pass in from the right but his 20 yarder went over the bar.

Queen’s raced to the other end and Drozd darted towards Budinauckas’ goal with the shot-stopper sticking out a hand to save his parting shot from close range.

It was the Jags that attacked with pace on 26 minutes, and MacKay continued the move when he nodded a pass through to Samuel however the striker was eventually crowded out and his effort on goal slipped wide.

Five minutes later Samuel forced Wills into a diving fingertip save from a 20-yard shot after being teed up by MacKay.

The play swung back to the other goal and Budinauckas kept his goal intact twice in quick succession as he saved again from Drozd and then pushed a Tyrece McDonell drive wide.

Three minutes from half-time Lawless picked up a wayward Drozd pass and made his way to the home 18-yard line and fired low only for his shot to whistle inches past.

Skipper Falconer had the last chance of the opening 45 minutes when he accepted a pass from MacKay from the left before scooping a shot over.

Half time – Queen’s Park 0 Partick Thistle 0

The hosts took the lead four minutes into the restart when Magnus MacKenzie drilled the ball across the Thistle penalty box from the left wing and Josiah Sowa slid in to send a shot first time past Budinauckas.

The Red and Yellow side looked to get level quickly and Samuel was just inches out with a header from a corner and shortly afterwards Docherty was unfortunate not to turn in a low cross from the right.

Just after the hour mark Alex Mann was next to come close as he nodded a Lawless free-kick goalward only for a deflection to take it wide.

The resulting set-piece was to see the visitors equalise as Lawless’ cross was knocked into the path of FALCONER who swivelled on the spot and cracked a shot into the net from six yards.

With a quarter of an hour to go Mann threatened again when he strolled forward and unleashed a shot from 25 yards that looked net-bound until a home head knocked it wide.

Budinauckas ensured parity remained in place when he dealt with a fine drive from Jamie Bradley before substitutes Gabriel Nosa and Ryan Paterson combined with latter coming close to scoring, after accepting a cross form the former, before shooting just over.

Nosa tried a close-range flick over his own shoulder in 86 minutes which created danger for Wills who had to watch it carefully as the ball just evaded his goal.

In injury time a long-range cross field pass from Falconer looked to have set Thomas Horn free and just as the striker looked set to shoot the home side’s Cole Burke slid in and cleared.

The final whistle was blown and penalties were called for with Thistle winning 6-5 after 16 kicks thanks to counters from their Trialist, Horn, McBeth, Nosa, Falconer and Dolan

 

Partick Thistle – Lewis Budinaukas, Liam Dolan, Trialist, Alex Mann (Lucas Allan 79), Luke McBeth, Steven Docherty (Harry Weir 72), Daniel MacKay (Gabriel Nosa 65), Nick Lockhart, Matthew Falconer, Alex Samuel (Thomas Horn 65), Steven Lawless (Ryan Paterson 65).

 

Unused substitutes – Connor Storey (G/k).