Largs Thistle 3 Greenock Morton XI 2


For the first friendly game of the season, this was an exciting rollercoaster of a contest in which Largs came up trumps at the end.
It was a bit of a Who's Who with Thistle testing out a lot of their new team with a number of trialists also featuring, and it was the young Morton side who dominated the early proceedings as Largs tried to find their feet in this encounter.
A familiar face was Largs keeper Ross Lundy who was regularly called into action and was the busier of the two keepers last Wednesday night.
It was Ben Eardley who converted Ton's early pressure by latching on to a long ball and raced on to cleanly convert past Lundy for the opener on 33 minutes.
Largs responded with a good run and diagonal shot from Laurie McMaster which just flew past the right post.
Lundy and Forbes both had to come to the rescue of Largs to clear off the line as Morton caused all sorts of problems in the Thistle box. 
Player coach John Sutton was in the technical area for Morton, offering instruction to the young Ton team, fresh from scoring against St Johnstone in a friendly at Cappielow for the senior side the night before.
By the time half-time had arrived, Thistle had done well to keep the score at 1-0 as the visitors had forced Lundy into several good stops.
Thistle's patchwork team didn't really move up the gears till after the break as a flurry of substitutions changed the outcome of this contest.
One of Thistle's silky midfielders in Paul Harkins notched an impressive equaliser with a long range effort which gave the teen Morton keeper Chris Wylie no chance on the hour mark.
However, the Greenock outfit didn't waste any time and managed to nudge ahead 2-1 shortly afterwards as Garrity lashed home after a low cross was pulled back from the right and was not cut out.
Ben Black showed a clean pair of heels to a defender before whipping over a low cross from the left which was converted by a trialist to make it 2-2.
Lundy was called into action again as he made a full stretch save to deny Michael Garrity's swerving effort.
Thistle were left singing in the rain as they overturned Morton with a high quality goal as new signing William Sewell, stepping up from the under 21s, exposed the Morton defence down the right wing and raced on to coolly chip keeper Wylie for a composed and high quality finish on 78 minutes.
Largs went on to the dominate the final stages in this game which represented a complete turnabout from the first half, and with the trialists impressing, Thistle showed great fighting spirit to overcome a hard-working Morton outfit.
It was a highly entertaining start to Thistle's pre-season series of games.
Harkins showed that he has some real impetus about him and will be aiming to hold down his first team place and could be a very useful creative player in the middle of the park, and there is no doubt about it, he has the eye for the spectacular when it comes to goals.
And it is great to see the likes of the Sewell brothers coming through the community club system and they have made a positive start to stepping up to the first team.
Largs: Lundy, Forbes, McMaster, Sewell, Trialist, Trialist, George, Trialist, McKenna, Harkins, Trialist. Subs: W.Sewell, Faulds, Trialist, Black, Adam, McGowan (GK).
Pics: John Keachie
Next Game: Friendly (H) Saturday 20 July - Largs Thistle Vs Luncarty, 3pm kick-off at Barrfields Park.