Missed opportunity for Ross County as manager Don Cowie fumes over early Christmas ‘gift’ for St Mirren in Dingwall
Ross County manager Don Cowie was particularly frustrated that his players did not take advantage of St Mirren going down to 10 men.
Former Staggies Alex Iacovitti opened the scoring in the first half in Dingwall, but County came firing back after the interval with Michee Efete equalising just 28 seconds after the restart.
It looked like County may be well-placed to gain a valuable three points when Scott Tanser was sent off with around half an hour remaining, but it was the visitors who posed the bigger threat.
Even then, it took until the 89th minute for Oisin Smyth to fire in a free kick to win it for St Mirren, leaving the home faithful, coaching staff and players all extremely disappointed.
“First of all it’s a massive opportunity missed,” Cowie said.
“I was really frustrated at half time with the group, and I thought they reacted really well to score so early.
“When St Mirren go down to 10 men, it’s perfectly poised for us, but we did nowhere near enough to go on and win the game.
“We did not test them enough considering they were down to 10 men.
“The weather was challenging, but you’ve still got to do more.
“At no stage did we make our advantage count. We created one really good opportunity at 1-1, but barring that we didn’t ask anywhere near enough questions.
“St Mirren played the conditions really well, and dealt with going down to 10 men really well.”
The defeat was County’s fourth in-a-row, with a lack of goals seemingly their biggest cause for concern.
Efete’s strike was just their fourth goal in their last eight matches, and with further crunch ties to come against Dundee and Hearts next week the Staggies will need to change that record quickly to avoid dropping further down the table.
Cowie added: “It’s my responsibility. Results have not been good enough over the last six weeks, but the only thing you can do is get together and work hard to make it difficult for the opposition.
“Right now we are gifting teams the opportunity to beat us. Today we made a rash decision to give them a free kick on the edge of the box, and we get punished for it.
“There’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves, because it’s only us who can change it.”
