County make their point once again
ROSS COUNTY could not buy a victory for the first three months of the season when a 10-match winless run had the Staggies supporters fearing the worst.
Now they look almost unbeatable after turning the Global Energy Stadium into Fortress Dingwall.
You have to go back 11 matches to mid-December to discover the last time they lost out on their own patch — and that was to a stoppage-time Celtic winner.
And they could just as easily have been celebrating a return to the top six but for a brilliant double save by Scotland keeper Craig Gordon and the woodwork on no fewer than three occasions.
Justice was also seen to be done when Hearts were awarded a controversial penalty decision after Barrie McKay appeared to dive to win a spot-kick following a 16th-minute challenge by Connor Randall. Ross Laidlaw guessed correctly and dived to his right to thwart McKay’s effort after referee Gavin Duncan made the wrong call.
County had enjoyed an astonishing let-off after four minutes when their former player, Liam Boyce, was presented with the easiest of chances to fire Hearts into the lead.
With Aaron McEneff’s cross from the right evading Laidlaw and his fellow defenders, Boyce was left with an unguarded net to aim at, but the ball clipped his heel and was diverted well wide of the target.
But Hearts were then saved by a post rather than the quality of their defending when Jack Baldwin headed against the woodwork after Ross Callachan and Blair Spittal had engineered an opening from the former’s corner kick.
Hearts were doubly fortunate when Boyce then got in the way of Harry Paton’s follow-up. But they found themselves trailing after 31 minutes when Spittal played a pass to Alex Iacovitti and the latter beat Gordon from close range.
County nearly increased their lead a minutes later when the hosts again knocked on wood, this time after Spittal had set up a scoring chance for Regan Charles-Cook.
There is no saying how the loss of a second goal at that stage might have impacted on the morale of the Hearts players. But they made the most of their second narrow escape by drawing level six minutes from the interval.
McKay atoned for his failure to convert his penalty when his shot from the left side took a deflection off Baldwin and wrong-footed Laidlaw in the process.
The woodwork once again came to Hearts’ rescue in the 51st minute. Gordon pushed Jordan Tillson’s effort on to his far post with a save of genuine quality and Callachan, following up, was also denied when the veteran someone also kept his effort out.
While Hearts prepare for a derby double header against Hibs in the league and cup, County head for Pittodrie on Saturday with their topsix hopes still very much alive.
If they manage to dump the Dons and Hearts do them a favour against Hibs, it will represent one of the most astonishing turnarounds in Premiership history.
No wonder miracle worker Malky Mackay was full of praise for his players.
The Staggies manger said: ‘I’m very proud of the players and staff for actually putting us in this position. It shows the belief and the confidence that has grown since October that they have adapted and worked so well. We are as good as most teams in this division right now.
‘We’ll go to Pittodrie and give it everything we’ve got and we are going there full of confidence. We are hard to beat.
‘We were playing against the clearly the third-best team in the country and I was delighted with the way we stood firm and took the game to them.
‘Right to the last minute we were trying to win what must have been a terrific game for a neutral.’
Counterpart Robbie Neilson echoed Mackay’s sentiments, saying: ‘It was highly entertaining but I expected that. Both teams wanted to win the game and it was open and could have gone either way.’
Referring to Gordon’s double saves, Neilson added: ‘We have come to expect that from Craig. One of the reasons we can be quite expansive is that we know it’s going to take a decent effort to beat him.
‘We want to entertain and we have players who can do that. We started really well, missed the penalty, missed another chance and Ross County came into the game.
‘They put us under pressure for a period and got their goal. Then we managed to get it back level and in the second half it was pretty even.’