OWEN COYLE is adamant that the destination of the Championship title was never going to be a foregone conclusion as Queen’s Park failed to put themselves in the driving seat as Morton came back from behind to keep themselves within a fighting chance of finishing in the play-offs.
The Spiders knew a win would give them the advantage going into the final day but Dougie Imrie’s men had other ideas as strikes from midfield duo Grant Gillespie and Robbie Crawford cancelled out Malachi Boateng’s opener on the half hour mark to put Morton within two points of third place heading into the final weekend of action.
And the 56-year-old says his side need to up it going into Friday night’s title decider at Ochilview.
He said: “We obviously knew a win would have us ahead going into the final day, but regardless of that nothing changes, we go into the game knowing we need to win if we want to win the title. We had a couple of good chances to go ahead before we scored a wonderful goal to go ahead. But after that we give away a cheap penalty to go into half-time on level terms.
“All being said and done, Morton have got the victory and we go into Friday looking for the standards that saw us keep two clean sheets heading into the game, we need to get back to defending better.
“It was never going to be a foregone conclusion, but coming to Morton is always going to be a tough game. They work hard and showed some good quality at times. All credit to them, it’s their day.
“We’ve acquitted ourselves well at times but we need to bring it all together and have a more complete performance and if we can do that then we go into Friday capable of being champions.”
The Cappielow men dominated the first half and should’ve been ahead on the half hour mark as Robbie Muirhead danced his way into the box off the right-hand side and saw his left-foot effort deflect off the leg of Charlie Fox, but he could only watch as the goalbound looping effort was brilliantly clawed out for a corner by Spiders goalie Callum Ferrie. But the Spiders took the lead against the run of play with just over half an hour gone with a devastating counter attack as O’Connor was caught on halfway freeing Connor Shields down the right.
Scott Williamson salvaged his heavy cross to play the ball back to Boateng on the edge of the box to clinically place the ball in the bottom-right corner.
Morton showed that they weren’t going to go down without a fight, however, and were on level terms right on the cusp of the half-time interval. Marcel Oakley was turned by Jai Quitongo who turned on a sixpence to spin away from his man.
He coaxed the Birmingham loanee into a tackle to bring him down in the area leaving John Beaton with no choice but to point to the spot. Ton skipper Gillespie made no mistake, slotting home from 12 yards.
And the Glasgow side would have to put the champagne on ice as Ton roared into a second-half lead with 25 minutes to play on a devastating counter-attack of their own.
Some great work from George Oakley saw him body Charlie Fox on halfway and spin away from his man to spark a quick counter. He played the onrushing Crawford in behind Lee Kilday and all that was left to do was finish with aplomb as he lifted the ball over Ferrie and into an empty net to keep his side’s play-off push going down to the final day.
And Ton boss Imrie praised his side’s fight as they now enter a straight shootout of their own against Cove on Friday knowing a win would be enough to propel them into the top four should results elsewhere go their way.
He said: “I’d like to think we deserved the victory. That’s the team that everyone’s been giving plaudits for the way they’ve played all season and we’ve beat them three times.
“I thought the players were superb. After the goal our reaction was superb and we controlled the game. We handled the occasion.”
