Killian Phillips opened the scoring for Saints in the 39th minute but the Championship side came back and levelled in the 62nd minute through an Aidan Fitzpatrick strike and the tie will be decided in Paisley on Monday night.

Wilson said: “Pretty exciting, I suspect, for everybody who was watching.

“Great colour, great atmosphere, started OK and created a few chances. I would have liked to have taken one of them, obviously, but I just felt we were open in the middle of the pitch.

“St Mirren got the goal through that situation so I had to change things. I needed to get another midfielder on there. I thought it paid off.

“I thought we were better, more control, scored a very good goal and probably unfortunate not to get a second so I feel pretty good, pretty positive about it. Nicely poised for Monday.”

Interim St Mirren boss Craig McLeish will look for better in the second leg.

He said: “We knew it was going to be a tough game. They were unbeaten here all season, other than against Celtic in the League Cup.

“We’ve now got one game to secure our future. We’d have liked to take a win back home, but we’re dead even and we have the home advantage now.

“We need to perform better than we did in the second half.

“Partick will take confidence from tonight. They were very good in parts of the second half especially.

“First half we carried out our game plan quite well. We had some sustained pressure.

“Second half it flipped a bit. We didn’t start it too well and rushed things, which allowed them to build momentum. They got the crowd onside and it was tough for us.

“We have to build again for Monday and be confident going into it.”