Ross County hero reveals penalty difficulty, booking fear over antics and Partick Thistle adversity claim

Ross County penalty shootout hero Ross Laidlaw revealed he thought he was going to be booked for his attempts to put off Partick Thistle's spot-kick takers.

The 30-year-old produced two huge saves in the shootout win in the Premiership play-off final, having kept the team in the tie with eye-catching stops in the first-leg. It was the first time this season he had saved a penalty, something goalkeeper coach Scott Thomson had mentioned prior to the second-leg on Sunday.

“I think he couldn’t believe his eyes when I saved a couple,” he said. “But we practised them on Saturday and I saved three, so I was confident going into it. I thought I might save a few. Everyone hit a penalty in the practice, even me and I scored it… I didn’t fancy taking one for real!

“I banged the bar a few times to put them off a bit. I don’t think you’re actually allowed to do that any more and I thought the ref might book me. But you want any little advantage you can get and in those situations, the emotions take over and you do mad little things.”

A key aspect of the comeback for County was putting Thistle, who led 3-0 with 20 minutes of the tie remaining, into a situation where they had to deal with “adversity”.

“We wanted to get a goal and see how they reacted to it because they’ve not been in that position for a while and everything has been rosy for them,” he said. “Going out in the second half we thought lets just give this a go and see where it takes us.”