Schalk shines as County’s winless run is consigned to history with demolition job on Dens men
ELATED Owen Coyle saluted his relegation-threatened Ross County side for ending their three-month winless streak — then promptly challenged them to start climbing towards Premiership safety.
Coyle’s strugglers had been staring at the abyss due to a wretched run of form.
But they rallied in some style to return to winning ways at Dens Park courtesy of Alex Schalk’s second-half double allied to Davis Keillor-Dunn’s opener, before substitute Tim Chow settled matters with a last-minute strike.
Despite remaining bottom of the Premiership, the manner in which they ended a lengthy stretch without winning since their 3-2 defeat of Motherwell in early November ought to work wonders for their confidence in their quest to move up the table.
Dundee, who sorely missed defender Jack Hendry after his midweek move to Celtic, did briefly level through youngster Kerr Waddell’s 57th-minute header but few could begrudge their opponents victory.
County boss Coyle said: ‘It’s long overdue as we had been on a terrible run. It had to come and it had to come quickly.
‘The longer it goes the more difficult it gets. You could crumble and fall apart but the really pleasing thing from my point of view here was the character the players showed when it went to 1-1.
‘I said that this was the point when the characters stand up and get ready to go again.
‘You could think: “Here we go again”, but the quality of our finishing was outstanding.
‘This is the time to start winning games. You don’t want that terrible run we were on at the end of the season because it’s a difficult one to get out of.
‘Now that we’ve changed that, it’s up to us to kick on.
‘We want to be right in about things come the split and believe we have good enough players to keep the club in the league.’
There was a Dundee debut for ex-Tannadice favourite Simon Murray who had moved on loan from Hibs — and his arrival had triggered excitement among the expectant home support.
County barely resembled a side threatened with the spectre of relegation as they attacked at every opportunity. And they surged ahead in 49 minutes when Keillor-Dunn pounced on a loose ball and curled an unstoppable finish from 20 yards high into Elliott Parish’s top corner.
It was a short-lived lead. Dundee substitute Lewis Spence’s cross picked out Waddell and his downward header sneaked inside Scott Fox’s far post.
However, the visitors regained the initiative in 61 minutes. Spence was robbed of possession and from then on Schalk sprinted through on goal to finish well.
Schalk made sure of the three points with his second in 64 minutes.
Keillor-Dunn’s backheel was perfect and his team-mate duly buried a left-foot shot across Parish, something which Chow did likewise right at the end.
Deflated Dundee boss Neil McCann held his hands up for his part in their downfall and said sorry to their supporters.
McCann said: ‘I can only apologise to the fans because that does not sit well with myself or the players.
‘I’m not just going to throw the boys under the bus because I made mistakes as well.
‘I’ll take responsibility for some of the decisions I made.
‘But together we’re certainly going to have to look over that ourselves and see how bad that was. It’s not good enough and I didn’t see it coming.’
DUNDEE (4-3-3): Parish; Kerr, Waddell, O’Dea, Holt (El Bakhtaoui 90); Kamara (Deacon 78), O’Hara, McGowan; Leitch-Smith, Haber (Spence 54), Murray. Subs (not used): Malherbe, Kusunga, Aurtenetxe, Lambert. Booked: None.
ROSS COUNTY (4-4-2): Fox; Naismith, Souttar, Fontaine, Fraser; O’Brien (Chow 70) Routis, Kait, Keillor-Dunn; Schalk (Mckay 82) Ngog (Curran 79). Subs (not used): McCarey, Gardyne, Dow, Melbourne. Booked: Souttar.
Referee: John Beaton. Attendance: 4,971.