Don Cowie demands response after Ross County suffer cup humbling

Don Cowie demanded a positive response from Ross County after their Premier Sports Cup humbling at the hands of fourth-tier Spartans.

The Premiership side crashed out at the last-16 stage after going down 1-0 to their League Two hosts at Ainslie Park.

Cowie admits his team must start making amends for their flop against the Edinburgh-based part-timers when they return to action with a visit to Rangers in the league on Saturday, followed by a home match against Aberdeen prior to the international break.

“The fans are rightly unhappy,” said the Staggies boss. “We’re all unhappy, we’re an honest group and football club and we know when we’ve let ourselves down.

“The fans came and supported us, as they always do, and like us they were thinking this was a great opportunity to progress in the cup.

“We can put that right now going into the league campaign by showing them that we’re hurting from this defeat.”

Henderson’s goal came just 20 seconds into the second half when he headed home from in line with the penalty spot but County struggled to create any clear chances to equalise.

“The frustration is we conceded so early after half-time,” said Cowie. “We spoke about it, about not giving them any encouragement.

“To concede within 30 seconds of the restart, that was really disappointing but we had more than enough time to bring the game back into our hands and we didn’t do enough. We huffed and puffed and that’s the biggest frustration.”

Long-serving Spartans boss Dougie Samuel was impressed with how his side pulled off another big cup upset.

“I felt like we were quite comfortable in the game, without being disrespectful to Ross County,” he said. “They were playing in front of us and it was a strong defensive performance.

“Everyone knows what it takes for a result like this to happen, you need a wee bit of luck and for things to go your way, you need everyone to play well and typically you need to score a special goal.

“History was on our side in that we have a lot of good and recent memories from big games, and I think that helped us over the line.”

Progress to the quarter-finals of the Premier Sports Cup comes just over a year after Spartans won promotion from the Lowland League to League Two.

“This football club is very much about that organic, incremental growth,” said Samuel. “It’s not been a big splash or a big bang. It’s been done over a gradual period of time, and I think we’ll continue to do it that way.

“This cup run is an added bonus. It’s great for the club’s profile and can help me attract new players, maybe a better quality of player.

“But first and foremost this is about the group of players. They’re a special group of people who get on great with each other and they also happen to be decent at kicking a ball.”