RICHARD Brittain has insisted Ross County will take confidence from their display against Rangers at Ibrox yesterday despite being on the receiving end of a 2-0 defeat.

The Highland club competed well with their Glasgow rivals during the Premiership match after falling behind to a first-half James Tavernier penalty.

Coll Donaldson headed a Josh Reid free-kick just over with 10 minutes remaining before Brandon Barker netted a late goal for the home team.

It means that County, who have won just one of their last eight matches, remain just four points ahead of bottom-placed Hamilton in the top flight table.

But assistant manager Brittain, whose men played Montrose away in the Betfred Cup on Wednesday night, was pleased with many aspects of the performance.

“We’re disappointed to lose the game obviously, but I’m delighted with how we did in possession,” he said. “We restricted Rangers. I felt our shape was good and the game plan we worked on was good. It paid off and on another day we could have got something from the game.

“I said to the players after the game that you come to these places and play at this level and only get one chance. You have to take it. Unfortunately for us we never managed to take it.

“We have to take the positives from the game and keep rolling forward. We’ve got a game on Wednesday night, the first game in the cup, and we’ve got to take the positives from this game and carry that on to Wednesday.

“That’s what we said to the players. There’s no point performing like that then not turning up on Wednesday night and not playing at the same level. If you can put in consistent performances week in week out, you’ll have a successful season.”

Brittain admitted he is hoping no bids are received for County striker Ross Stewart before the transfer window closes at midnight tonight. “You can’t stop rumours, you can’t stop teams being interested,” he said. “But when that window closes, we’ll all be grateful for it.”