Clarke’s glass is half full
Steve Clarke heaped praise on his Killie stars as they closed in on a top-six place despite a frantic f inish almost costing them victory.
Kilmarnock appeared to be cruising to the points after strikes from Lee Erwin, Kris Boyd and birthday boy Eamonn Brophy put them on easy street.
But goals from Staggies subs Billy Mckay and Alex Schalk in the f inal few minutes made for a nervejangling finish.
However, as Clarke’s men made it 10 games unbeaten at Rugby Park he wanted to focus on the positives.
The Premiership Manager of the Month said: “I’d rather concentrate on the 86 minutes before it where we were excellent.
“The last five minutes we lost concentration and if you do that at any level you tend to get punished.
“It’s beginning to look like we might sneak into the top six. But we’ll keep our feet on the ground because we’ve still got hard games to play before the split.”
Erwin broke the deadlock after 16 minutes as he volleyed home a Stephen O’Donnell cross.
Killie doubled their lead a minute into the second half when Aaron Simpson picked out Boyd and the veteran rifled home his 14th goal of the season.
Clarke threw on Brophy anand he grabbed the third within 90 seconds, drilling home from an acute angle.
Hero Brophy said: “It’s always nice to get a goal and this win keeps the run going ahead of our Scottish Cup replay with Aberdeen.”
But Killie will have to defend better than they did here as a poor Aaron Tshibola passback handed Mckay the chance to net.
And Schalk pulled another goal back late on with a close-range header.
The Staggies remain bottom and co-boss Stuart Kettlewell said: “We have to take the hits but we have to come back quicker. We haven’t reacted quickly enough and it’s something myself and Steven Ferguson need to address.”