Tait in no fit state to think about call-up

MOTHERWELL manager Stephen Robinson spent the latter part of last week talking up the chances of some of his players for inclusion in Alex McLeish’s first Scotland squad that will be announced today.

Come Saturday evening though, after his side went down in dismal fashion to local rivals Hamilton, he may have been questioning whether some of them deserved their place in the Fir Park ranks.

One of those who he tipped as having an outside chance of making the Scotland squad was wingback Richard Tait, but as he trudged into the dressing room after the match on Saturday to digest what had just happened to his side, a maiden international call-up wasn’t uppermost in his thoughts.

“It’s obviously nice for the manager to say things like that, and it shows that he’s got confidence in me, but it’s the farthest thing from my mind if I’m honest,” Tait said.

“It was a bad result for us, and a very bad performance really. We’ve got to l ook at ourselves when we get home, come in on Monday and crack on again.

“We were second to the second balls, didn’t put enough crosses into the box, and never really looked like scoring. We haven’t been like that, it was a very bad day at the office.

“The manager wasn’t happy, put it that way, and I don’t blame him.”

Motherwell boss Robin- son had suggested after the game that some of Motherwell’s players were guilty of forgetting to do the basics that have served them so well this season, and Tait couldn’t disagree with his manager’s assessment.

And he was thoroughly disappointed that the visiting players hadn’t given a sizeable travelling support anything to cheer at all.

“It was a derby, and we didn’t do enough to win any game, never mind a derby game,” he said. “We’ve only got ourselves to blame. It always feels like a derby when you play your local rivals, but we certainly didn’t show that it was a derby match.

“We didn’t put the ball in behind, we didn’t put crosses in the box. We passed it around their final third and never really went anywhere. Usually we get the ball wide and put it into the box.

“We probably got away from the things that got us to this point.”

Despite the defeat, Motherwell’s prospects of making the top six remain alive, with just four points separating the Fir Park men and Hearts, who have played a game more.

But with tough fixtures ahead of the split against Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen and St Johnstone, Tait isn’t l ooking too far ahead.

“The main thing for us is the next game, rather than worrying about where we’re going to finish,” he said.

“We’ve got to make sure we keep putting points on the board and see where that takes us.”