IAN McCALL was adamant that referee Andrew Dallas failed to award not one but two penalties towards his Partick Thistle side as the Jags slipped to a 3-2 defeat at Stark’s Park.

A well-worked short corner midway through the first half resulted in Dario Zanatta coolly slotting the ball home against his former club, taking his tally to six for the season, in a frenetic contest in Kirkcaldy.

Two second-half goals from Kyle Benedictus – the first via the penalty spot, the second from a corner – were enough to give the home side a commanding lead, although the hosts faced a nervy finale after Brian Graham and substitute Zak Rudden struck late on for the visitors.

It all could have been so very different though. At 1-0, Graham appeared to strike the ball off of an opponent’s arm and moments later, captain Ross Docherty went down in the area under a clumsy challenge. Dallas was unmoved by the Thistle players’ protests for either incident.

“I thought we dominated the last 20 minutes of the first half and we really dominated the vast majority of the second half,” McCall explained. “One or two things just didn’t go our way today. You just have to suck it up and get on with it.

“If you want to finish in the top four, you need to win five or six every quarter [of the season]. So that makes it difficult for us.

“We need to win our next two games, it’s as simple as that. But if we play like we did today then we won’t be far off.”

He continued: “You’re going to ask me about the penalty shouts. The first one I think is a penalty after seeing it back. The second one – I don’t even need to see it. It’s the clearest penalty you’ll ever see and it’s right in front of the linesman.

“We all make mistakes. I probably made a few today – maybe leaving Zak out was a mistake. Hopefully it evens up over the season. In the last two or three games we haven’t had much of the rub of the green.”

Opposing manager John McGlynn, meanwhile, admitted that he enjoyed the game but could have done without the late barrage his team were subjected to.

“We like to entertain, eh? We got the end product, 3-2, and we won the game,” he reasoned.

“But from 3-0, with not a lot of time to go, it did get a little more nervous at the end than we would have liked.

“Partick were never out of the game to be honest with you. The game was end to end, they had a lot of pressure and had us pinned back for long spells.”