The Highland Derby, or “A Day Late and A Dollar Short”
It has taken me a full day to digest Ross County’s 3-1 loss to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in yesterday’s Highland Derby and, having done that, I’ve come up with four positive things I can say about the match. First, the County support was large and vocal from beginning to end (something that cannot be said of the home crowd). Second, County were better in the second half. Third, Iain Vigur’s free kick was a stunner and it’s becoming kind of a habit with the young Aberdonian midfielder. Fourth and finally, results in today’s matches generally went in County’s favor, thus mitigating the damage (mathematically, not emotionally) of losing to Caley. Click through for more on that last point.
The current Scottish Premier League table looks like this:
There are two main things to note here: First, with the postponement of their match today (a power failure in the area around the ground causing safety concerns for fans coming and going from the match) Dundee United, though a place behind Ross County, hold two games in hand over County. United were one of the better clubs in the league last year so there’s little chance they will be down for long. Second, and more importantly to hopes and dreams in Dingwall, Dundee could lose touch with the rest of the pack within a few weeks and with only one team relegated at the end of the season, that is GREAT news for County. ”Not being as bad as Dundee” is hardly the way any County supporter wants to remain in the SPL, but that is, at the end of the day, what this is all about- staying up. But, until County can find their feet, that will have to be good enough.
County return to action on October 20 when they will face current table-toppers Hibernian F.C. in Dingwall. County will have their hands full against this surprise club (they were awful last year), but they have two things going for them: the last two times they’ve met (in the Scottish Cup) County have come away with a win and a draw and, second, Derek Adams may have some inside information from his brief time as an assistant coach at Easter Road in 2010-2011.
