Ross County 0 Kilmarnock 0: Thirty-nine clean steps

Sunday 2 September 2012

ROSS County looked more like themselves again yesterday – but it had taken no fewer than nine changes to their starting XI to achieve that.

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Only two members of the side that faltered against Raith Rovers in the Scottish Communities League Cup earlier this week were allowed to retain their places on the return to league duty, hardly surprising given the First Division side had taken all of 25 minutes to unpick a redrawn County team, and a further 75 minutes to humiliate them. The team sheet was predictably more familiar against Kilmarnock – and a goalless draw a more palatable result.

Yet it is perhaps more instructive to say that only one of those who faced up to the Ayrshire side at 3pm had not done so against Dundee a week earlier. Even then Alex Cooper only earned his first start for the club because Mark Corcoran was injured. It is an indication of the faith that County manager Derek Adams had in his squad that he was keen to retain most of those who had helped pull them up from the First Division, with only a few new faces coming in over the summer.The familiarity in personnel has also helped inform a consistency in results – County have now gone 39 league matches without defeat – while new bodies have had to be content with furnishing the technical area on matchdays. The sense then is of County having an established first XI while still being some way short of ways to change things up. Any side are likely to suffer to a degree when stringent change is made, as County did against Raith, but it must rankle with Adams that he is not able to rely on the rest of his squad more readily.There were moments yesterday when you found yourself looking around for someone, anyone, to arrive to spark the game into life. County punctuated the opening exchanges with a shot flashed wide by Iain Vigurs after three minutes and a header from Scott Boyd clutched by Kilmarnock keeper Kyle Letheren.The Welshman was less comfortable eight minutes later, though. Letheren allowed Rocco Quinn's cross to slip from his grasp and had to rely on James Fowler to clear up after Marc Fitzpartick nodded the ball back into the six-yard box. "We could have created more chances but they can probably say the same thing," said Adams. "But we have gone 39 games now unbeaten and that's because we have a strong organisation."Boyd also flirted with calamity. The County defender had been booked just before half-time and was fortunate early in the second half not to be punished by referee John Beaton for a challenge on the edge of the penalty area.The visitors' advances were similarly unconvincing; the travelling support filling the time between intermittent forays by voicing their enduring discontent towards the Rugby Park club's chairman Michael Johnston. It took their time 34 minutes to redirect that attention to the pitch – Borja Perez blazing a shot into the stand – while the closest they came to upsetting County was when Rory McKenzie broke into the penalty area only for his low shot to strike Michael Fraser's foot.McKenzie was given a lone furrow in attack and his prominence in the Kilmarnock side was indicative of the lack of depth with which Kenny Shiels is being made to operate. "I think both teams should be deducted points for that performance. It's not what I came to Scotland for, it was like anti-football," said the Kilmarnock manager. "But we have an excuse because we had a skeleton team with us."

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Ross County 0 Kilmarnock 0: Thirty-nine clean steps

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