Ross has to cheer up his rising Saints
ST MIRREN manager Jack Ross revealed his players were down in the dumps despite lifting themselves off the bottom of the table for the first time since September.
The Buddies, who finished with ten men and also missed a penalty, had gone ahead early only to be pegged back by a dogged Dumbarton and Ross said: ‘As a club, we are disappointed because of the standards we set.
‘We earned the point, so the biggest message from me is that if you told us three months ago that we’d be off the bottom of the table with five games to go, we’d have bitten your hand off for it.
‘They are disappointed but I won’t let them go away like that. They have to see how far they’ve come.
‘We’ve put ourselves in a decent position.
‘It’s ironic that on a day when our performance levels weren’t where they’ve been recently, we’ve come off the bottom of the table.
‘I’m having to pick them up because of the pressure they have put on themselves — and I’m happy with that — but they must take satisfaction and belief from coming off the bottom.’
Dumbarton were first out the blocks and nearly found the net when Darren Barr’s header clipped the bar.
But Saints grabbed the lead on ten minutes when Cammy Smith found Kyle Magennis in the box and the midfielder lashed the ball into the bottom corner.
Sons levelled eight minutes before the break when Lewis Vaughan curled the ball into the far corner from 25 yards.
The Buddies should have been back in front within two minutes when Barr fouled Stephen McGinn in the box but Rory Loy’s soft penalty was saved by Alan Martin.
Andy Stirling came close for Dumbarton in the 54th minute before Saints’ Stevie Mallan had a shot saved in the 63rd minute as both teams searched for a winner.
The Paisley side ended the match with ten men after Adam Eckersley saw red for a second yellow in the final minute.
Dumbarton boss Stevie Aitken, whose side remain four points above the drop zone, said: ‘I think overall it’s probably a fair result.
‘We came here with the aim of restricting St Mirren going forward and I thought we did that.’