Ross County manager Don Cowie hails ‘unbelievable’ composure of penalty hero Ronan Hale after Staggies striker sends battle to avoid Premiership relegation play-off down to the wire
Don Cowie labelled Ronan Hale’s level of composure “unbelievable” after the former Cliftonville man fired in a 96th minute penalty to keep Ross County’s hopes of avoiding a third consecutive relegation play-off alive.
Hale had proven to be a thorn in the side of Dundee all evening at Dens Park, hitting the crossbar in the first half and missing more chances in the second before finally slotting home his spot kick in stoppage time.
It was a vital kick too – consigning St Johnstone to automatic relegation, and keeping County in the race to avoid a play-off ahead of the final day of the season this Sunday.
Had he missed, a play-off would have been the best case scenario for the Staggies rather than the worst, so the hopes of everyone associated with County were resting on his shoulders as he ran up to take the penalty.
Knowing how important that goal could still be for County’s season as a whole, Cowie was full of praise for the mentality that Hale showed in such a pressurised moment.
“It was a massive goal – it means we’ve got an opportunity on Sunday, and we’ve kept things alive,” Cowie told the club’s media channel after the final whistle.
“In the end we have five forwards on the pitch because we’re trying to do everything we can to create an opportunity, which means we’re exposed to the counter attack, but it was great character from the boys to keep going.
“We get a bit of the rub of the green in the manner in which the penalty comes, but Ronan showed unbelievable composure and conviction to stick a really important penalty away.
“I thought he was really good again. In the first half he was very unlucky when he hits the bar, and he had a good opportunity in the second half which he didn’t take, but you always know he’s going to keep going.
“He always has that chance of producing something out of nothing, because he’s so hungry to score goals. For him to step up in the manner in which he did is great credit to him, and it’s a huge goal for us.”
On the performance as a whole, Cowie was pleased to see an attacking intent especially early on against Dundee that has been missing too often in recent months.
Going into the match off the back of seven consecutive losses, it would have been easy to fear the worst when Scott Tiffoney put Dundee ahead in the second half, but the Staggies manager felt his players showed a resolve to keep battling until the final whistle.
Getting some kind of reward for that, then, should fuel belief going into what is now a must-win match against Motherwell in Dingwall on Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve been on a poor run, I’ll never shy away from that,” Cowie added.
“When we get to the last part of the game and we have five attackers on the pitch, I’m asking Nohan (Kenneh) and Connor (Randall) to work extremely hard to cover a big area of the pitch, but they kept going and kept going, and we got the rewards.
“The support was excellent again. We haven’t given them enough to get excited about over the last six to eight weeks, which I’m really frustrated and disappointed about.
“Hopefully, seeing the boys going to the end and getting that equaliser will see them turn out again on Sunday to help us get those three points that we need.”
