New Thistle coach Steven Swift has said that the Barrfields club face NINE cup finals in 2017 to try and get themselves out of the mire.

Largs lost out 4-1 to Pollok on Saturday to leave them firmly anchored to bottom spot at Christmas, and with teams above them having games in hand, there is now little room for error in the McBookie,com Premier Division.

Steven said:"When you are giving away cheap goals, it is never going to be easy. Robbie Winters gets in front of Jamie McDonald for the second goal, and Eddie Walton and Sean Graham get involved in a misunderstanding for the third - if you give away cheap goals you are never going to win football matches."

"We have to learn to defend and be more consistent - one week we showed it against Hurlford, and the next week we did not.

"There is no doubt about it - we are in the absolute mire - and we now have nine cup finals coming up. There are no more Saturdays off, and hopefully the boys can channel into that."

"I think that the first chance came after about 45 seconds - it was that early and maybe caught James Marks cold, but it was a glorious opportunity, and who's to say that could have changed everything, goals change games, and the crowd could have got on Pollok's backs, but it is all done and dusted, and we need to be more dogged."

In terms of the controversial opening goal, Steven said: "It looked a foul to me - the way I had seen it the linesman had ran away as if he had given the goal, and the referee didn't seem to know what he was doing. Although, either way, I think Pollok deserved to go one goal up at the break for the penalty or the goal, and we just need to take it on the chin.

"You can't have another game off or a bad performance, or unfortunately the boys are down, so the quicker the boys realise how vital every game is. We have been working hard and doing a lot of things in training to improve, and hopefully the boys can respond."

Pollok boss Tony McInally said: "It was a dominant professional performance from start to finish from us, and we started in the right manner, and pressed the ball throughout. The boys brushed off the penalty kick miss, and I thought going in 1-0 at half-time, although it was a fortuitous goal, I thought we deserved it, and it was great to get the second goal from Robbie Winters, who is a class act, right after the break, and that helped us on our way to victory."

* A foodbank collection at Pollok's ground on Saturday yielded a total of 60 bags, and both sets of supporters were thanked for their kind donations at the game.