McIntyre keeps his cool as wasteful
JIM McINTYRE displayed remarkable self-restraint when delivering an assessment of his team’s performance.
One suspects that the Ross County manager must have been close to exploding with frustration after the Highland club squandered a hatful of chances to record their first home win since August.
Dutchman Alex Schalk was the biggest culprit after replacing Craig Curran, who complained of a hamstring problem at half-time.
Schalk missed the target with three of his efforts, had another blocked by goalkeeper Gary Woods in stoppage time and when he did find the target, he was denied a goal because of an offside decision.
Even though McIntyre disagreed with assistant referee Kylie McMullan, claiming it was a wrong call, he avoided criticising her in public.
But he will no doubt spend the next few days trying to work out exactly how his team managed not to win.
Having taken the lead with a powerful header from Liam Boyce six minutes from the interval, it appeared to be only a matter of time before County clinched all three points, given their all-round superiority.
But while the score remained at 1-0, there was always an element of doubt in the home players’ minds and Ali Crawford exploited it with a beautifully struck free-kick to pinch a point.
An equaliser was far more than Hamilton’s play merited but their players are to be commended for never losing heart and self-belief.
‘We played really well but just in the final third with the last pass we let ourselves down,’ said McIntyre.
‘We showed quality last week in punishing St Johnstone and the performance here was similar but, unfortunately, we didn’t put the ball in the net more than once.
‘When it’s 1-0, you’re always likely to get hit with a sucker punch.
‘We missed some gilt-edged chances and it’s not like Alex. There were a couple of times he didn’t work the target.
‘He’s really disappointed but the main thing is that he was making those types of runs and he made a very strong contribution.’
County have the poorest home record in the Premiership with a solitary win, while their opponents