Published on Monday 30 January 2012 01:28
ROSS County defeated Livingston for the first time on league business back in November and on Saturday they repeated the feat as a number of former Lions came back to haunt Gary Bollan’s side.
The Dingwall club’s maiden success was in West Lothian by a 3-0 scoreline and they repeated that win at their Highland home to re-establish a five- point lead at the top and stretch their unbeaten run to 17 games.
With second-placed Falkirk on Scottish Communities League Cup duty, and fellow title chasers Dundee idle, County know that their victory in one of their three games in hand sends out a positive message about their ambition.
Dingwall boss Derek Adams resisted the temptation to throw his new recruit, former Scotland defender David McNamee, into action against one of his former clubs, but it was another former Lion who opened the scoring on 28 minutes.
Colin McMenamin was perfectly placed to reach a Michael Gardyne cross to put his former employers one goal down and two further former Livingston players, Rocco Quinn and Richard Brittain, came close to adding a second before McMenamin scored again, the striker netting from close range with eight minutes left after visiting goalkeeper Andy McNeil had kept out a Grant Munro effort. It was three goals for former Livingston favourites when Sam Morrow ran on to an Iain Vigurs through ball and shot past McNeil.
Adams, himself a former Livington player, said afterwards: “With the teams close to us not playing we knew that this would be a really good game to win. Livingston have always made it difficult for us so it is nice to finally chalk up a home league win against them.”
Bollan added: “We were still in things at one down but we did not defend properly. We also never threatened Michael Fraser enough, so there are not too many positives to take.”
The match between Hamilton Accies and Raith Rovers was postponed to leave Queen of the South’s contest against Morton as the only other game played in the First Division.
It was to prove to be a memorable meeting with the Doonhamers winning 2-1 thanks to a double from debutant Sam Parkin and manager Gus McPherson’s slating of his opposite number Allan Moore.
Former St Johnstone striker Parkin opened the scoring just before the hour mark when he converted a Gavin Reilly pass and he made it two on 65 minutes when he shot home a Nicky Clark cross.
Archie Campbell pulled a goal back with quarter of an hour left, but the home side saw the game out to move off the foot of the table.
McPherson was delighted with the win and thanked Moore for inspiring his team with what he felt were inappropriate comments. He explained: “Allan did our team-talk for us and was our motivation for the game. You can criticise the pitch but he went beyond that and was disrespectful to the club and the players. He also mocked our position in the league and has had a lot to say for himself that he could not back up.”
Moore tried to build bridges, saying: “I did not mean to be derogatory to Queens and apologise if things have been taken that way.”
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