Date	Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Competition	KDM Evolution Trophy
Fixture/Score	Ross County 2:1 Forfar Athletic
Venue	Global Energy Stadium at Victoria Park
Referee	Lewis Hogarth
Ross County
Manager	Stuart (Ketts) Kettlewell
Starting 11	1: Bradley Foster, 7: Richard Chin, 10: Jamie Lindsay, 15: Dylan Smith, 17: Ricco Diack, 20: Jack Turner 1, 22: Adam Emslie, 28: Jamie Williamson, 35: Oliver Lamont, 39: Joe Coyle, 43: Josh Reid
Bench	21: Jayden Reid, 3: Lewis Strapp, 4: Akil Wright, 6: Connor Randall, 9: Brian Graham, 11: Kieran Phillips, 16: Chris Hamilton 1 1, 23: Ross Docherty, 32: Copeland Thain
Forfar Athletic
Manager	Jim Weir
Starting 11	Theo Simpson, Aron Lynas, Matty Allan, Ross MacLean 1, Martin Rennie 1, Adam Brown, Angus Mailer, Mackenzie Lemon, Aaron Arnott, Callum Wilson, Aiden Haddow
Bench	Neil Stafford, Scott Shapherd, Reece Da Silva, Tyler Gadsen, Rocco Hickey-Fugaccia 1, Mark Whatley, Lucas Slidders
Attendance	628
Match Report	Ross County Goal Scorers: Jack Turner (37') Chris Hamilton (88') Ross County Substitutions: Kieran Phillips for Joe Coyle (66') Chris Hamilton for Richard Chin (71') Akil Wright for Oliver Lamont (78') Connor Randall for Jamie Williamson (78') Brian Graham for Jamie Lindsay (78') Ross County Caution: Chris Hamilton (80') Forfar Athletic Goal Scorer: Rocco Hickey-Fugaccia (70') Forfar Athletic Substitutions: Rocco Hickey-Fugaccia for Adam Brown (36') Tyler Gadsen for Angus Mailer (46') Forfar Athletic Cautions: Ross MacLean (57') Martin Rennie (86') Report by Andrew Henderson for the Ross-shire Journal. Ross County 2 Forfar Athletic 1 Stuart Kettlewell admitted his Ross County side were “miles off” the levels they have set for themselves this season despite a 2-1 win over Forfar Athletic. The Staggies wrapped up the league phase of the KDM Evolution Trophy by ensuring they would be seeded for the next round, with Jack Turner opening the scoring in the first half and Chris Hamilton scoring a late winner for the hosts in Dingwall. That said, the game was a scrappy one for long spells, with League Two outfit Forfar more than holding their own for periods of the match, leaving Kettlewell wanting far more from his players even in victory. “We need to acknowledge that we were miles off the levels we need to be at, and that we have been at so often,” he said. “You would say we deserved to be 1-0 up in the first half, but without being great, and you would have expected us to go up by 10 or 20 per cent in our decision making and our quality. “It was the complete opposite in the second half. One poor error had us spiralling, and one bit of poor quality led to another. “That’s something that we iron out really quickly. Mistakes get made in games of football, but I felt there was a bit of apprehension there. “One or two guys had come in who haven’t been playing recently, so there could have been a bit of ring rust, but I thought it needed a bit of authority when there was an error. There was apprehension there instead, which made the game closer than it should be. “I felt we had enough quality in the team to win the game, and we had a lot more to show. I talk about how productive our forward players have been, but that wasn’t sustained enough tonight. “Our use of the ball became really ragged and disjointed in the second half, and if you do that you give incentive to the opposition. That’s how the game panned out. “We do have brilliant personality in the dressing room, and we always believe we can get another goal. Fortunately for us, it was Chris Hamilton who got that, so it was job done in the sense of getting the win and getting seeded, but we want to be doing it with far more style and control than we did tonight.” County made eight changes to the side Kettlewell labelled as “outstanding” in last Saturday’s 5-0 win over Montrose, handing a first competitive Ross County start to Joe Coyle alongside his fellow academy graduates Oliver Lamont, Jamie Williamson, Dylan Smith and Josh Reid. While a frustrating evening for all involved, experiences like this should also help the younger members of the squad understand what it takes to compete for starting spot in an in-form Staggies side. “Every chance you get on the pitch is a chance to make an impression, for better or worse, and we saw some things tonight that haven’t been too common for us this season,” Kettlewell added. “It’s not about pointing fingers, but we didn’t get close to the standards we have set ourselves, and when that happens you don’t look like a team full of confidence. “I would imagine we’ve planted the seed in a lot of teams heads coming up here that they need to bank in, like Forfar did with a solid 4-5-1 in the first half to make themselves hard to break down. “We have been free scoring, so our job is to play against that and not give other teams more incentive, but Forfar started to expand in the second half and take more risks because they thought they could get change off us, and they did start to get chances. “Like after every game, we will analyse it, and I probably took about a million mental notes of things we can show the players to do better. “Just taking one example, Oliver Lamont made a really poor pass in the middle of the pitch in the first half. We recovered the situation quite comfortably, but for five minutes after that he was apprehensive and wanted to pass the ball too early when he wasn’t under pressure, or go back to our goalkeeper. Then he plays the best pass of the game a few minutes later. “We asked Jamie Williamson, who has been really good in this competition, to play at full back tonight, and it wasn’t his best game. We need to work out why that was. “Our combinations weren’t quite there, which can happen when you’re changing your full backs and wide players. Joe Coyle played up top with Ricco, and we talk about them playing as a partnership but it wasn’t quite right tonight. “We will look at all that, and there are millions of things the young players will be able to take away from it, and the more senior players will also understand why they didn’t quite get to the level we expect in periods of the game tonight.”