COUNTY DOWNER
Kettlewell backs Highlanders to bounce back as fairytale ends
Ross County found out the hard way that you can’t save an entire season in 90 minutes.
But broken-hearted co-boss Stuart Kettlewell insists they’ll bounce back – and not just by throwing sugar daddy Roy MacGregor’s bank balance at it.
The Staggies’ six-year stay in the top f light ended in ignominy, an hour’s hope replaced by despair as Partick Thistle got the win they needed at Dundee to render the Highlanders’ game in Perth redundant.
The fact David Wotherspoon’s 92nd-minute leveller wiped out a third-minute strike from Craig Curran which put the miracle escape on the cards, was simply the final nail in a coffin already closed. It ended up little more than some extra salt in the tears.
Just six wins all season, three points from 15 after the split with three dif ferent management regimes in 38 games. A win would only have been papering over cracks which became chasms.
Jim McIntyre was given seven games, Owen Coyle lasted 21 - Kettlewell and Stevie Ferguson were given 10 to pick up the pieces but County were too fragmented and too broken to mend.
Now they have the summer to regroup for a league that’s proven too hard for an instant escape for Hibs, Dundee United, Inverness, Falkirk and Rangers.
Kettlewell said: “Everybody’s head is down, nobody is feeling good, ourselves included. The emotions are a bit raw. It isn’t the scenario we wanted but we knew it was a possibility. Nothing will ever prepare you for it, though.
“We need to go away and regroup and decide how we move forward. Things will change a lot in the coming months.
“What happened over an entire league campaign hasn’t been good enough from our point of view.
“Myself and Steven take full responsibility for the 10 games we have been in charge and we don’t point fingers elsewhere. “For a club of our size and a club coming from Dingwall has been in
this league for so long is a fairytale. But we’re fighters and we have to write our own chapter.” That story owes a lot to the benevolence of MacGregor, climbing through the divisions from 1994 to the top flight in 2012. Kettlewel l hinted he and Ferguson wanted to build a legacy on more than his cash. He said: “We’ll have ideas and we need to sit down with the chairman. “It ’ s wel l documented how much he’s backed this club and he’s backed mysel f and Steven going forward, irrespective of today. What changes is revenue from the Championship. We need to see how it affects us.
“Clubs aren’t about throwing money at things or trying to buy success. A huge part is about identity and ethos and we want to put our stamp on it. How can we drive the club forward?”
With only three away wins out of 18 and just 16 goals on their travels, there wasn’t much to suggest County were anything other than doomed.
Then again, they were up against a Saints side who’d only won five out of 18 at home.
With six players under 23 - including a first start for 18-yearold Ally McCann - and the rest in flip flops rather than mouldies, it had the feel of a forward-planning exercise for Tommy Wright.
None of which guaranteed the Staggies anything – but when they opened the scoring in the third minute, the chances of their escape felt a lot more real.
Jason Naismith’s shot across goal was def lected and fell for Curran, who bundled it through Alan Mannus at the back post.
The 35-year-old keeper was one of three Saints saying farewell and it was painful viewing but all that mattered to County was the win. Mattias Kait then hit the bar for County but their fate was never their own - and as the clock ticked to 63 minutes, their future was sealed 20 miles up the road.
After that? None of it mattered much. It was maybe just as well for County they coughed up a leveller – the fact it came in the 92nd minute just made it worse.
Sub Calum Hendry and Joe Shaughnessy combined on the right to set up Wotherspoon, who thumped in a strike from the edge of the box. Kettlewell said: “We’re taking our medicine and licking our wounds. Relegation is difficult to take but we’ll come back out fighting.”