Ross County 1 Motherwell 5: Kettlewell pleased to exorcise Dingwall demons with five-star show

Stuart Kettlewell was happy to exorcise the demon of the worst Motherwell performance in his time as manager with a 5-1 win over Ross County in Dingwall.

Blair Spittal and Paul McGinn capitalised on errors from County goalkeeper Ross Laidlaw to give Motherwell a 2-1 half-time lead, with Simon Murray having equalised on the counter-attack.

That is the way the score remained until the 82nd minute, when Motherwell ran away with the points thanks to three late goals from Spittal, Davor Zdravkovski and Harry Paton.

A delighted Kettlewell, whose side moved up to seventh spot with the win, said: “Our worst performance by a country mile since I came to the club as a manager was up here in a 3-0 defeat, and that was a sore one for me and the players, but I think today shows that we’ve turned a corner.

“It feels like we’ve put that ghost to rest, and it was a really professional performance.

“We could have turned up and gone through the motions, and not put our bodies on the line, but it really pleased me the way we played.

“We want to finish as high up the league as we can, because we know that every place in this league means money, and it’s something that’s going to help us moving forward.”

His opposite number Don Cowie, meanwhile, felt that his side “unravelled” in the closing stages of the match.

With 10 minutes left to play, the Staggies were chasing an equaliser, but even though they were unable to find a way to parity Cowie was disappointed at how one-sided the scoreboard ended up appearing.

“We’ve gifted them two goals in the first half, and we got punished for it,” he said.

“The game was 2-1 with 10 minutes to go, and ultimately Motherwell have picked us off when we had to go for it.

“I have no issue with losing games of