CAPPIELOW REALITY CHECK HELPED ROSS COUNTY
CALLUM MORRIS believes Ross County’s defeat at Cappielow in August did the team a world of good ... by bursting their Premiership bubble. The ex-Aberdeen and Dundee United centre half is keen to avoid a repeat of the 2-1 beating when the Championship leaders face Morton there again tonight, but reckons it served as a timely reality check for the Highlanders after relegation from the top flight. Morris, who had joined County from Dunfermline, now feels that loss provided a sobering jolt to players unaccustomed to the tough division. The 28-year-old Geordie said: ‘Unlike a lot of the lads, I’d played at Cappielow a few times the season before and I know it’s a tough place to go. At Dunfermline, we lost twice there and didn’t beat them all season. ‘Looking back on it now, the defeat in August might have been a good thing. A lot of the boys had been playing in the Premiership last season. Although there’s not a lot between the leagues, there is a difference in playing style sometimes. You go to places like Cappielow where the pitch is small and they just want to turn it into a dogfight. They didn’t cut the grass before our first game there this season. ‘That’s what you’re going to get week-in, week-out in the Championship. ‘You’ve got to adapt to it quickly and, sometimes, getting a defeat like that early on in the season, when it has little effect on league standings, it can be a good thing in retrospect. ‘The boys then knew what it was going to be like. ‘We all know now it isn’t going to be easy and we’ll have to dig in sometimes and absorb the bombardment of long balls. ‘We’ve probably become more resolute in how we set about picking up points away from home. ‘But that defeat is definitely something we want to put right as it’s only been two defeats all season. ‘They came up here and we beat them, so we want to go down there and do the same.’ County moved three points clear of Ayr United at the top of the league with a fiery derby victory over Inverness in Dingwall last Saturday. And they will be keen to turn up the heat on the Honest Men — albeit Ian McCall’s side have a game in hand — with victory over Jonatan Johansson’s Morton in Greenock this evening.