Dundee 0 Ross County 1: Bottle of Brittain ensure s newcomers break duck

Sunday 26 August 2012

ROSS County celebrated their first SPL win yesterday, extending their extraordinary unbeaten run to 38 league matches and giving them a respectable tally of six points from four games in their first season in the top flight.

Team-mates hail scorer Brittain Photograph: SNS

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Chris Tait

"The 38 games is a great record to have and it's brilliant to also have six points on the board, especially after a difficult opening run of games against Aberdeen, Motherwell, Celtic and Dundee," said manager Derek Adams. "We've got a long way to go but hopefully we can continue that."

That this victory was preceded by three draws is perhaps a less impressive statistic. It would be unfair to use that to belittle the Dingwall club's sterling start but the incentive must now be to add a few more wins.Such an ambition was muted by a lack of chances yesterday and even the circumstances of Richard Brittain's second-half penalty lacked conviction, with Dundee furious at the award.County's first chance fell to Scott Boyd, whose header landed on the top of the crossbar after just five minutes. A corner late in the first half also caused a bit of a scramble in the Dundee penalty area, yet it remained a largely peaceful area of the pitch for most of the afternoon as County's forward ambitions became effete. A Mark Corcoran cutback produced a low shot from Iain Vigurs and a smart stop from Rab Douglas, while Brittain dropped a free-kick just past a post.As frustration crept in the match became a little tetchy. Dundee captain Stephen O'Donnell's derby-day red card was reduced to a booking and allowed him to feature against County but he received another caution yesterday when he caught Brittain in the midriff.The decisive penalty incident came after 73 minutes when Neil McGregor was contentiously adjudged to have brought down Corcoran in the box, the County midfielder tumbling after a meek shunt with the shoulder. Brittain rifled his spot-kick into the net. Not surprisingly, it was a divisive issue afterwards. Adams said it was a "definite penalty". Dundee manager Barry Smith would only say: "You write what you think ... I'm not getting involved with talking about the referee."At least it gave the rest of us something to discuss other than how tedious the match was. Dundee could have lived with that, of course, and it meant Colin Nish had an easy enough afternoon to settle into life on Tayside following his loan move from Hartlepool United.It is unfair to regard Nish simply as a brutish forward in whose direction the ball must be skelped as often as possible. The striker is capable of an astute touch, and he turned neatly inside the penalty area midway through the first half only to see the chance scrambled away.More than that, though, he was a pillar of strength for the Dens Park side and his experience and hunger informed an encour-aging, if understated, debut, undermined by his team-mates' inability to find him in the box.He glanced Kyle Benedictus' floated delivery wide by Nish after 22 minutes but most crosses found their way to Mark Stewart, who nodded past a post in the first half, and Gary Irvine.He was inches away from connecting with Jim McAlister's low cross just before half time, then intercepted a cross which had been intended for Nish before clipping it against the post from a tight angle.These were fine margins but Dundee will have to pick up their pursuit of their first league goal of the season against Hearts next weekend. "I can't fault the boys for work-rate and effort but that alone won't win games," Smith said.

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Dundee 0 Ross County 1: Bottle of Brittain ensure s newcomers break duck

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