Date	Saturday, 16 August 2003
Competition	Scottish League Division 1
Fixture/Score	Queen of the South 1:0 Ross County
Venue	Palmerston Park
Attendance	1,734
Referee	Jamie Downie
Comments	Match Report Report from the Press & Journal. Queen of the South 1 Ross County 0 County manager Alex Smith was left bitterly disappointed as his side lost its unbeaten record in controversial fashion. County were denied a stonewall penalty in the 67th minute when a David Winters cross struck the arm of Jim Thomson. Referee Jamie Downie waved away claims from stunned County players, while Smith threw his hands up into the air into understandable frustration. He said: "In my opinion it was a penalty, but it's all about the interpretation of the law. The referee decided it was ball to hand rather than hand to ball, but that is not how I saw it. "I doubt we'll play better than we did. I thought we had plenty of the ball, but didn't create many chances. "It's disappointing not to take something from the game and I'm disappointed we didn't turn things around after we lost the goal." The only goal of the game came as a result of a mistake from County goalkeeper Colin Stewart in the 11th minute. A 25-yard shot from Eric Paton was spilled by the new No. 1 and Derek Lyle was on hand to fire home from close range. Despite the glaring error, Smith refused to criticise his man and said: "It was a goal out of the blue, but he is a young goalkeeper and he'll learn from it." County played some good football at times and certainly looked like a side capable of challenging for the title. But they didn't deserve much more than a point at Palmerston and even that would have been cruel on Queens who fought hard for the win. It was only after half-time that the Dingwall men began to assert themselves and in 50 minutes home goalkeeper John Dodds did well to block a Jim Hamilton shot. Eight minutes later on-loan Dundee United youngster Winters crashed a shot into the side netting as the visitors pressed but couldn't find an equaliser.
Ross County
Manager	Alexander (Alex) Smith
Starting 11	1: Colin Stewart, 2: Stuart Malcolm, 3: Jordon Tait, 4: Jamie McCunnie, 5: John Rankin, 6: Mark McCulloch, 7: Steven MacKay, 8: David Hannah, 9: Sean Higgins, 10: James Hamilton, 11: David Winters
Bench	0: Leslie Fridge, 0: Sean Webb, 0: Hugh Robertson, 0: Don (JNR) Cowie, 0: Conor Gethins
Queen of the South
Manager	John Connolly
Starting 11	John Dodds, Brian Reid, Derek Allan, Eric Paton, Jim Thomson 1, Steve Bowey, David Bagan, Willie Gibson, Joe McAlpine, Derek Lyle 1, Garry Wood 1
Bench	Colin Scott, Andrew Aitken, Alex Burke, Shaun O'Connor, John Paul Burns