Cale Loughrey: Theres a lot of confidence across the team

Monday 12th October, 2026 at 3:16pm

Cale Loughrey has been a stalwart in defence for Thistle this season, playing every minute in the league and his early season efforts were recognised last week when he was presented with the Seven Wealth Player of the Month award for September.

The 25-year-old defender got another full 90 under his belt on Saturday in the Jags’ 2-1 win over Livingston and he shared his thoughts on the game after full-time:

“I’m very happy; it’s a huge win for us. Livingston is a tough place to play, and they put up a good performance.I think weneeded to play a bit more direct and physical, but we stood up to that and won a lot of our duels.

“Some brilliance at the top of the pitch got us the three points today. Ithink after the home win and the way we played against Arbroath, it definitely put a lot of confidence into the team and we brought that with us into this game.”

Thistle’s Canadian centre-half then reflected on the defensive effort and his performance.

“As a backline, we defended very well – especially our box – because there were a lot of deliveries coming inandthey’vegot a few big boys on their team.

“Personally, I wasn’t as tidy as I normally am, but some games are going to be like that particularly when we’re away from home. Teams know the style of football that we like to play so I think being versatile is something that helped us get the result today.”

Having taken an early lead, Thistle were pegged back just before half-time and Cale gave us an insight into what Mark Wilson’s message was during the interval.

“He was very calm and asked us to keep doing what he had been doing. We talked about how we were doing a good job of winning second balls in midfield and that we’d been creating chances.

“There was definitely no panic. We’re not a team that gets easily flustered and we try not to let our heads go down when we concede because we know we have the quality to respond when it’s needed.”

The attention now turns to a trip to face Ayr United on Friday night and Loughrey told us a bit about how the team will prepare for that one.

“It’s a bit different with training and days off because we’ve got one less day to prepare but the principles are still the same. You need to stay sharp, manage the workload and figure out what the gameplan is going to be.”

Last time we were at Somerset Park, it was an eventful afternoon for Cale and he recalled that visit to Ayrshire.

“I got my first league goal for the club and it was a great feeling but also an awkward one because I ended up giving away a penalty not long after so it was a short-lived happiness.

“That was a tough afternoon because we had 10 men for a long time so to get a point was good result but this time we’ll definitely be looking to get the three points.”

Written by Craig Vassie