There was a surprise when the teams ran from the tunnel as Hammell failed to appear. Francis-Angol got the late late call up and slotted into the left back slot. The game was four minutes late in starting, perhaps due to the enforced change of personnel.
What happened next?
St Mirren kicked off and it soon became apparent that we would face a tough job to break though a determined defence. The visitors were set up to play on the break with Thompson looking a bit isolated in his lone striker role. We had a few early chances. Humphrey got to the dead ball line and cut back to McFadden his effort rebounded to Higdon but our man mistimed his shot. Ojamaa and McFadden then exchanged passes but the lack of a clean shot foiled our chance.
The opener was a carbon copy of Higdon's goal at Dens Park last week. Lasley floated a cross to the angle of the six yard box and it was duly dispatched across the keeper and into the net. With half an hour gone we had taken control and forced the visitors to go hunting. Their reward came shortly before the break when Newton made the best of a 25 yard strike that flew into Randolph's top right hand corner. It would have been a frustrated Motherwell dressing room at the break.
Ojamaa almost broke the deadlock within a minute of the restart. His fierce shot from the right side of the box was parried by Samson's reflex one handed save. The Saints made the game a much more open affair as they were happy to push forward.
A feature of the second half was the number of goal bound efforts that Motherwell had that were deflected narrowly beyond the goal frame. Lasley, Humphrey and Hateley were the unfortunates who were deprived of glory by those unlucky glances.
St Mirren took the lead with 15 minutes remaining. McLean supplied substitute Guy and from the left he chipped Randolph to give the visitors a lead they hardly deserved. The majority of the 5,414 crowd urged Motherwell forward and in the 84th minute the game was settled.
We were awarded a free kick on the right side of the pitch around 25 yards from goal. Faddy grabbed the ball and there was a audible note of anticipation from the home stands. He delivered the ball over the wall and into the postage stamp corner with Samson a spectator. He celebrated with an armed raised run the length of the standing Cooper Stand.
We had a couple of half chances to snatch the win but any neutral observer would have found it hard to deny the visitors a point. We were fortunate that the results elsewhere had no damaging effect on our league position and we look forward to the announcement of the last five fixtures on Monday.
Sunday 12 May 2013
Motherwell 2 Ross County 0 Att 7,734
Randolph (Stewart 90), Hammell, Hutchinson, Ramsden, Law (Higginbotham 79), Hateley, Humphrey, Lasley, Carswell, Higdon (McHugh 79), McFadden