Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Buddies boss challenges team to stay out in front
ST Mirren manager Jack Ross told his players to enjoy being top of the Ladbrokes Championship but he stressed their aim was to stay there.
The Paisley side set another milestone in their transformation under Ross as a 4-2 home win over Inverness saw them knock Dunfermline off the summit.
Cammy Smith and Ian McShane got the final strikes of a five-goal blitz in 13 second-half minutes to secure St Mirren’s sixth consecutive home win after Caley Thistle had twice drawn level.
On being top of the table, Ross said: “It’s enjoyable, I stressed to the players to enjoy it.
“I’m not going to play it down completely because you need to enjoy it, it can change very quickly. Getting promoted from this league is very difficult but I would suggest it’s probably a while that we have been top of the league at a meaningful time.
“Do we want to stay there? Of course we do. We have targets, short-term ones and long-term ones, that we work towards every day. The players are aware of them, they have bought into them, they set them.”
Dunfermline looked set to stay top after going two ahead at Cappielow but Morton completed a second-half comeback in the last minute when Jai Quitongo broke clear to net.
Pars boss Allan Johnston said: “All they did was launch it long and they did the ugly side of the game better than we did. They picked up the second balls and played from there.”
Elsewhere, Queen of the South drew 2-2 at Livingston and Falkirk were held 1-1 at Brechin.