Taylor Hamill 'devastated' after Partick red card - Hall
Partick Thistle's Taylor Hamill was controversially sent off in Tuesday's 4-2 defeat to Aberdeen
Taylor Hamill was left “absolutely devastated” by a dubious sending off in Partick Thistle’s 4-2 defeat to Aberdeen, revealed coach Stewart Hall.
The Jags were 3-2 down with 30 minutes to play at Cormack Park when the assistant referee spotted an off the ball incident involving Hamill and Aberdeen’s Francesca Ogilvie.
Hall said he was “shocked” at the red card, and insisted Hamill is blameless.
“She feels as if she was the cause of us losing the game which is not right at all,” Hall told Anyone’s Game.
“I went up to the referee and asked and he said it was violent conduct, and I can see by your reaction you’re just as shocked about that as well.
“Anyone who knows Taylor Hamill knows that she is not a violent player. She’s not the type of player to cause bother to anyone.
“I didn’t see it physically myself, but from the reaction from everyone including the Aberdeen players, I’m shocked.”
Aberdeen made a blistering start to the game going 3-0 up through a Chloe Gover double and trademark Bayley Hutchison finish within 30 minutes.
The north-east side also hit a post and crossbar in the opening exchanges and it looked like Partick were feeling the effects of Sunday’s gruelling 3-1 defeat to Glasgow City in the Scottish Women’s Cup semi-final.
But after a lengthy stoppage following a knock to Dons defender Donna Paterson with half-time looming, Hall believes his side had a wake up call.
And within a matter a minutes, a Rachel Donaldson strike and a Linzi Taylor free-kick had Thistle back in the game at 3-2.
He added: “This group of players know the standards we’ve set all year have been really high. The way we’ve been going about our business has been really good and in most games we’ve proved we can compete.
“In the first half-hour we can say there’s a bit of fatigue and heavy legs from Sunday but that doesn’t account for what happened in the first 30 minutes.
“But they lifted the standards and scored two really good goals to get themselves back in it.”
Aberdeen guaranteed sixth
Aberdeen Women co-manager Gavin Beith reckons he’s got to be happy with the position the club are sitting in.
The win over Partick ensured Beith and Emma Hunter’s side are guaranteed at least a sixth placed finish in their first season back in the SWPL 1 after two successive promotions.
They currently occupy fifth position with three games to go, knowing Spartans are five points behind.
“We are really happy. I think you have to be,” Beith told Anyone’s Game.
“At the same time you can be disappointed even like tonight you can be doing really well and then you let teams back in it so it is something we need to try and address.
“But I think if you said at the start of the season that we would be sitting five points clear in fifth with three games to go, I think we would’ve taken that every single day of the week.
“We’ve still got a massive three games to go and we know things can change very quickly in this league – you can win lose or draw any Sunday. So it’s going to be a challenge to go and pick up points but we know what we need to do.”
He added: “I think the first 25-30 minutes we were relentless.
“We had a lot of the ball, we were on the front foot and created a lot of chances.
“We put ourselves three in front and it maybe could’ve been one or two more.”