Paul Lawson bidding to treat Ross County’s top-flight debut as ‘just another game’

However, the midfielder is well aware that County must treat today’s match like any other and avoid becoming too caught up in the occasion.

The Highland side will take their place among Scottish football’s elite when Motherwell come calling at Victoria Park in the home side’s SPL debut. Midfielder Lawson said: “All the boys are excited. Since we won the title a few months back, it’s all we’ve thought about.

“Credit to everyone at the club for getting the stadium in place in time. It’s just roll on the kick-off now. It’s a big day in the history of the club on Saturday but, at the end of the day, it’s another game and we have to treat it like that. Hopefully it’s a full house and we want to put on a good performance for the fans.”

County reached the Scottish Cup final in 2010 – losing to Dundee United at Hampden – and Lawson says the experience whetted their appetite to play top-level opposition on a more regular basis.

He added: “We had the Scottish Cup run a few years back but they’re one-off games against SPL opposition. We knew then that we wanted to get up and play those sort of teams every week.

“We’ve done that, we’ve got there, so now the job is doing ourselves justice and staying there.”

Motherwell have had a taste of competitive action already this season, losing 2-0 to Panathinaikos in Tuesday’s Champions League qualifier ahead of next week’s return leg in Athens.

Having claimed third spot in the SPL last term, Lawson fully expects County to face a tough challenge in their opening match against Stuart McCall’s men.

He said: “They had a great season last year. By all accounts they did very well the other night.

“So it’s a very tough game. We know that we are going to have to be at our best to get a result.”

Motherwell manager McCall believes his team “couldn’t have been give a tougher start” than facing the First Division champions, who have gone 34 league games unbeaten, and left-back Stevie Hammell is not surprised manager Derek Adams has achieved such success.

Hammell said of his former Motherwell team-mate: “He was a total professional, both on and off the park. It’s no surprise to see him doing well there.

“I think they were struggling when he went back and he took them to promotion and on a crazy unbeaten run, which is still going.

“I couldn’t see Derek going into anything and being half-hearted. He would be right in there, 100 per cent, giving everything.

“I’d imagine he’s got every minor detail prepared. If they play the way Del did, they will be a hard team to beat.”