Reaction

jack ross at st Mirren park

After a good start, I was disappointed at the goals we lost today, certainly the second and third goals, although it didn’t really concern me about the third goal as we were chasing the game by then, you are as well losing 3-1 than 2-1, in fairness to Mitch he did the hard part well and then he miscues with his back pass, the second goal was the most disappointing one, it’s an individual mistake at a crucial time in the game, you can pick the bones out of any goal, but what we are now trying to do is be competitive in every game we play, and today against a full time team who were in the Premier League last season, sometimes you have to take that step back and look it that way, in the last ten, fifteen minutes of the game it was much like last week, there is no point coming away having us heads rubbed and saying we were unlucky to lose 2-1, I prefer to go for it and try and get something out of these games and today it just went the other way for us, it could easily have went to other way and we could have grabbed a point.

I think we had a wee bit of fortune with the penalty, I don’t think the player could do an awful lot of the ball hitting his arm, we didn’t even claim for it, there is sometimes a bit of ambiguity over if they will be given and that’s the wee bit of fortune we need and sometimes it has been deserved over the course of the last 4 or 5 games, in fairness to Isaac, I was pleased for him because his performances have improved recently and he showed great composure and encouraged to go and take the penalty, the start was good and I think on reflection if we had managed to get to halftime, I know from past experience, the natives can turn and I think they were starting to get a wee bit restless and their good probably came at a good time for them and a blow for us. At that time we were not giving away all that many chances but it was what it was and in the second had we were competitive again. Isaac had a great chance to put us back ahead and these are the fine lines between winning or not, these moments reflect upon whether he had scored and then the game takes a different completion again, but for Isaac he is putting himself in good areas and is not becoming recognised as a threat to defenders and he was certainly a handful again today, remember he has not played at this level before and he was playing League One football only a few weeks ago, so that is encouraging for us, there are loads and loads of positives for us to take again, my job is to make sure the players keep believing that, I’m not the one who is out there, knocking my pan in for ninety minutes and the one who has to go home and say we lost again, it is easy for me to say it but I will do my damndest to make sure they keep believing that.

Today we made individual mistakes that have cost us goals, we speak about that, in a constructive way , in terms in what I am getting from the players – absolutely no complaints what’s so ever, in commitment and quality at times to go and play, as long as I get that between now and the end of the season we will get results and these will define our season and the day will come up, we know that and these will be the games which decide our fate. It’s probably not a bad thing to have a break next week as the players have worked hard, they have put a great deal into the last weeks, so it allows us to lick our wounds a bit, because the players are disappointed, we must keep upbeat, we will welcome the break and we will now have to do some adjustments in squad wise in not a lot of time. Michael Doyle is going over to Ireland to have a trial with Cork City, which we wish him well and Scott McKenna’s loan period from Aberdeen is coming to an end.