Ruthless Ronan Hale scored twice as Ross County climbed out of the Scottish Premiership relegation play-off spot with a 3-0 win at Motherwell.
The Northern Irish striker took his goal tally for the season to 12 by finding the net either side of half-time before Connor Randall drilled home late on to wrap up a comprehensive win for the visitors.
Don Cowie’s side move above Dundee into 10th place in the table and within two points of Motherwell, who drop to seventh after a fourth successive league defeat.
County threatened in the opening minutes and Noah Chilvers’ corner was blasted towards goal by Jonathan Tomkinson but was eventually hacked away to safety.
Motherwell responded with a good chance of their own. Tony Watt latched on to a high ball over the top and drilled an angled drive that struck the inside of the post before landing in the grateful arms of visiting goalkeeper Jordan Amissah.
Ellery Balcombe had to be alert when Hale tried his luck after seeing the Well keeper stray from his line.
The home ‘keeper was being kept busy, holding firm to deny Kieran Phillips and then reacting well to keep out Nohan Kenneh.
However, Hale broke the deadlock in the 32nd minute after getting a fortuitous break of the ball when Miller’s tackle fell right into his path, and he hammered home from eight yards.
Motherwell tried to respond and Luke Armstrong demonstrated some excellent close control to bring down Watt’s cross, though he was unable to keep his shot down.
In the final action of the half, Chilvers burst forward and then fed Hale to force another save out of Balcombe as County threatened again.
Motherwell’s players left the field with the sound of boos ringing in their ears, and things did not improve after the interval as County scored again in the 59th minute.
Chilvers split the Steelmen’s defence with a superb throughball and Hale kept his cool to convert into the bottom corner.
Motherwell finally forced a save from Amissah with 65 minutes on the clock as Watt acrobatically connected with Lennon Miller’s pin-point cross, and another chance followed when substitute Luke Plange forced a superb diving stop from the
County ‘keeper.
However, the result was put beyond doubt in the final minute when Randall unleashed a low drive beyond Balcombe to raise further anger from the home crowd.
What the managers said…
Interim Motherwell boss Stephen Frail: “We’re hoping a new manager will be appointed early next week – the players need that bit of clarity and a new voice.
“He’s going to inherit a group of boys that are talented, devoid of a bit of confidence, but hopefully he can try and galvanise them for what will be a difficult game next week [aginst Hearts] at Tannadice.
“Today wasn’t good enough, it was far from good enough.
“You hear the boos from the stand and, to be fair, I’d have booed the players and everyone involved at the club for a performance like that.”
Ross County boss Don Cowie: “I thought it was a really good team performance, it’s just a follow on from a really good run that we’re on away from home.
“A lot was spoken about our away form, it was important that we changed that. What was also really important was that when we got our first victory, we built and added to it. I’m delighted.
“We’ve got seven games until the split. We’ve talked about how many points we can accumulate in that spell and we’ll just focus on ourselves.”
