Wasteful County spurn golden opportunity to move to the top
ROSS COUNTY missed a glorious opportunity to reclaim pole position in the Championship ahead of their top-of-the-table showdown with leaders Ayr United at Somerset Park on Saturday.
A fifth draw in 16 matches left the Staggies trailing Ian McCall’s side by a single point, also having played one more following the postponement of Ayr’s home game against Inverness 24 hours earlier.
But had County been blessed with a sharper cutting edge they would surely have drawn ahead in the title race, given their possession statistics.
But that weakness coupled to Queen of the South’s organisational skills and general willingness to compete ultimately turned out to be the home side’s undoing.
Although dominant, the closest County came to a goal in the first 45 minutes was when Jamie Lindsay knocked on wood from long range.
But within five minutes of the restart, Alan Martin in the visitors’ goal had to produce a save of genuine quality when he was forced to stretch backwards to push a shot from Josh Mullin over the crossbar.
But Martin was unable to thwart the midfielder a second time after 55 minutes when Mullin struck to put County back on top of the Championship, at least ever so briefly.
Lindsay played a long through pass to Billy Mckay and the striker squared the ball into Mullin’s path for him to shoot into the bottom-left corner for the net from 12 or so yards.
County were expected to go on and win with goals to spare, but Queens were rewarded for a hard-working performance with a 71st-minute equaliser.
Lyndon Dykes was able to find substitute Andrew Stirling with his cut-back and the striker beat Scott Fox with a shot into the top right-hand corner from around 15 yards.
‘It’s a sore one because it was a huge opportunity missed to go back to the top of the table,’ said Stuart Kettlewell, County’s co-manager.
‘We got ourselves ahead and Queens speeded up and we expect that to suit us. But instead we conceded a really sloppy goal and then they had one or two opportunities.’
Queens boss Gary Naysmith added: ‘We showed great attitude. We were without two of our most creative players in Stephen Dobbie and Gary Harkins, yet there was a determination to get a result.’