Teale praises Saints spirit

An early debut goal from James Dayton was enough to hand Saints the crucial three points that takes them out of the relegation play-off position until Saturday evening at least.

"It was a huge win for us," said Teale.

"The boys, even the boys on the bench, every single one of them were outstanding.

"Everybody is going in the one direction and that's what it's going to take to move away from the bottom of the table.

"As long as we stay where we are now I'll be happy."

The win sees St Mirren leapfrog Motherwell into 10th place until the Steelmen play St Johnstone on Saturday.

Teale continued to praise his side, adding: "All credit goes to the players tonight.

"It's probably the worst we've played since I've been in over the last six or seven games.

"In a lot of those games I thought we were excellent, but it just shows you've got to be dogged and resolute and grind out a result, and I felt that's what we did tonight."

Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald bemoaned his side's lack of a cutting edge on a night where they enjoyed long periods of possession without really threatening to trouble the scoresheet.

"It was very frustrating," he admitted, "But I thought our start to the game set the tone. We were poor in the first five minutes even before the goal.

"I thought St Mirren started better and we lost a poor goal from our aspect when we didn't deal with the second ball.

"We had a long time to get back in the game and we didn't do enough. I didn't think we moved the ball quickly enough to the wide areas because the middle of the pitch doesn't make for great passing.

"There were a lot of poor performances, especially with our passing, I thought it was really disappointing the way we moved the ball tonight.

"The longer the game went on the more St Mirren were just sitting back and it forced us into playing aimless long balls which is something that doesn't suit our play.

"We've not got a big target man to hit it to so it was vital we got the ball into the wide areas and try to cut the ball back, but we didn't bother their goalie enough."