| Date | Thursday, 26 December 2013 |
|---|---|
| Competition | Scottish Premiership |
| Fixture/Score | Ross County 0:2 Hibernian |
| Venue | Global Energy Stadium at Victoria Park |
| Attendance | 3,383 |
| Referee | Brian Colvin |
| Comments | Match Report Report by Charles Bannerman for the BBC. Ross County's miserable Scottish Premiership form continued with defeat by Hibernian in Dingwall. Michael Nelson headed Hibs ahead from Paul Cairney's corner in the first half. Jordon Forster was the scorer of the visitors' second as another Cairney corner was nodded home after the break. And County could not recover as their run of league losses was extended to four, with Derek Adams' side last winning in October. Indeed, they only have a draw against Hearts to their credit in their last eight outings. For Hibernian, it was Terry Butcher's first league win as manager and the team's first victory in the Premiership in nine games. The first chance fell early to County when Graham Carey did some good work down the left to supply Melvin de Leeuw but his shot went just past the angle of the woodwork. The next opportunity produced Hibs' opener after 17 minutes when Cairney swung in a corner from the left and the defence latched on to other attackers, leaving Nelson free to head home off the underside of the bar. The goal galvanised the visitors and County keeper Michael Fraser had to be on his guard to field a long-range Liam Craig effort and a header from Paul Hanlon, again from a corner. At the other end Carey found the side netting with a 30-yard free-kick before both sides failed with free-kicks from just outside the box. In the second half, Forster sent an inviting ball across goal but it was scrambled clear by the County defence. County came close to an equaliser when Gary Glen fed de Leeuw, who then found Carey, but his effort came off the left post. Hibs' second came 10 minutes into the second half, again from a header from a corner which had been causing the County defence so many problems. Craig delivered the ball and Forster dived to head it home. Carey hit woodwork again while Rocco Quinn had a shot deflected past as County began to assert themselves. However, Hibs maintained their lead to go within a point of the top six while County went four points adrift of the guaranteed safety of 10th place. |
| Ross County | |
| Manager | Derek Adams |
| Starting 11 | 20: Michael Fraser, 3: Benjamin Gordon, 4: Stuart Kettlewell, 5: Scott Boyd, 6: Branislav Micic, 8: Richard Brittain, 10: Rocco Quinn 1, 11: Melvin De Leeuw 1, 23: Graham Carey, 19: Kevin Luckassen, 21: Brian McLean 1 |
| Bench | 1: Mark Brown, 9: Orhan Mustafi, 14: Darren Maatsen, 15: Gary Glen, 16: Alex Cooper, 17: Steven Ross, 18: Mark Klok |
| Hibernian | |
| Manager | Terry Butcher |
| Starting 11 | Ben Williams, Ryan McGivern, Paul Hanlon, Michael Neilson 1, Scott Robertson, Liam Craig, Paul Cairney, James Collins, Lewis Stevenson, Jordon Foster 1 1, Jason Cumming |
| Bench | Daniel Handling, Owain Tudor Jones, Sean Murdoch, Alan Maybury, Sam Stanton, Abdellah Zoubir, Ross Caldwell |