| Date | Saturday, 18 February 2023 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Scottish Premiership |
| Fixture/Score | Saint Mirren 1:0 Ross County |
| Venue | SMISA Stadium |
| Attendance | 5,634 |
| Referee | Graham Grainger |
| Comments | Match Report Report by Andrew Petrie for the BBC. Saint Mirren 1 Ross County 0 St Mirren addressed a mini blip in form with a comfortable Scottish Premiership victory over Ross County in Paisley. Declan Gallagher's powerful header gave them an early lead that they rarely looked like giving away. St Mirren had lost their last three games, including a disappointing defeat by managerless Motherwell through the week, but they dominated second-bottom County from start to finish. The visitors, who lost Owura Edwards to a late red card, stay 11th. You couldn't tell that St Mirren were down to the bare bones, ravaged by an outbreak of injuries that left Stephen Robinson naming five teenagers on the bench. Immediately, they went about troubling the County goal and it only took six minutes for Gallagher to bullet a header in from a Ryan Strain corner. Curtis Main went close too, but County were defending desperately - although creating very little of their own. The second-half started differently, largely thanks to the triple change Malky Mackay made. Owura Edwards set up a great chance that Nohan Kenneh blasted over before Ross Callachan whipped one over from the edge of the box. But St Mirren took control of the game once again and only outstanding goalkeeping from Ross Laidlaw kept County in it. The keeper was at full stretch to deny a Kieran Offord stab before clawing Strain's rebound off the line. Trevor Carson played his part too, preventing Gwion Edwards right at the death to keep hold of all three points. He put his body on the line to stop the rebound being bundled in and, in doing so, Owura Edwards clattered into the keeper, seeing red for his challenge. In the first half, St Mirren were excellent. They passed with purpose, spread it wide and created several chances but the ball wouldn't sit for a clean strike at goal. They eked out a few more chances after the break, but didn't find that edge to kill the game off. Ultimately though, they got the job done. Pre-match, Malky Mackay spoke of the importance of adding fire-power to his County attack, and how performances were starting to turn into results. But the result they got in Paisley was exactly what their performance merited and, had Gwion Edwards scored at the end, it would have been an entirely undeserved point. St Mirren assistant manager Diarmuid O'Carroll: "For 80 minutes, we were delighted. It gets a bit nervy naturally towards the end. We have a lot of players who haven't played 90 minutes that much, who were naturally going to tire and unfortunately we couldn't take one of the chances. "We're a team that allows the other team to have possession. The difference in the second half was we were sitting deeper. County pushed a little, but considering the injuries and lack of senior depth on the bench, the boys dug in." Ross County manager Malky Mackay: "We didn't deserve anything. The first half-hour really let us down. After that, we came into it and huffed and puffed, had a few chances towards the end. "The slow start really affected us. It's not like us, especially in the last few weeks. I thought we were really positive second half. We had plenty of balls in their box, it just didn't quite drop for us." |
| Ross County | |
| Manager | Malcolm (Malky) Mackay |
| Starting 11 | 1: Ross Laidlaw, 2: Connor Randall, 5: Jack Baldwin, 6: Alexander Iacovitti, 10: Yan Dhanda, 14: Victor Loturi, 15: Keith Watson 1, 16: George Harmon, 17: Simon Murray, 26: Jordan White, 42: Nohan Kenneh |
| Bench | 21: Ross Munro, 4: David Cancola, 7: Owura Edwards 1, 8: Ross Callachan, 11: Joshua Sims, 25: Alexander Samuel, 29: Gwion Edwards, 30: Dylan Smith, 49: Josh Stone |
| Saint Mirren | |
| Manager | Steven Robinson |
| Starting 11 | Trevor Carson, Thierry Small, Charles Dunne, Marcus Fraser, Ryan Strain, Declan Gallagher 1, Mark O'Hara, Ryan Flynn, Greg Kiltie, Tony Watt, Curtis Main |
| Bench | Joe Shaughnessy, Richard Taylor, Lewis Jamieson, Kieran Offord, Peter Urminsky, Fraser Taylor, Luke Kenny, Murray Campbell, Aiden Gilmartin |