Ross County 1 - 0 Hamilton Academical: Adams happy to win ugly

There was a flutter of local excitement this week as the Dingwall club’s chairman, Roy MacGregor, shared a stage with First Minister Alex Salmond.

The de-mothballing of the once-thriving Nigg fabrication yard just along the road by MacGregor’s company Global Energy promises to create a potential 2,000 jobs.

On the football field, if current form is any measure, Ross County, too, seem destined for more prosperous times.

SPL ambitions have seemed almost as long in storage as the Nigg facility, but grow more realistic by the week.

MacGregor’s entrepreneurial spirit aside, shrewd playing acquisitions on a relative shoestring and the return of manager Derek Adams seem to have culminated in a return of that erstwhile 2010 Scottish Cup form.

Grant Munro’s first-half strike settled a scrappy battle of the morning’s top two to pile up the encouraging statistics for the Dingwall outfit.

County made it eight league games unbeaten with their fourth win in a row. The Staggies have lost just two goals from open play in the last six games.

The win also stretched the championship lead to three points with Adams, a keen advocate of attractive football, far from unhappy at the ugly nature of the win.

“We’ve got a resilience just now that we have needed. We’ve certainly added that to the team,” Adams said.

“It was more of a scrap than a football match, but you need that as well. It’s a different side to the game.

“I don’t think it was an entertaining game but we still could have scored another few goals.

“It’s fantastic run we’re on and we’re sitting on 19 points, so we can’t complain.

“It was a satisfying win – and thoroughly deserved. You wouldn’t call it entertaining or pretty, but you need that side to a team to do well.”

The Dingwall side lost Rocco Quinn to injury after the win in Dundee but had a fresh concern after only five minutes when striker Sam Morrow tweaked a hamstring.

Momentum was with the hosts, though, and Iain Vigurs’ 30-yard free-kick was hurtling just under the bar before David Hutton intervened with a saving tip over.

County’s breakthrough was deserved after 31 minutes, with Grant Munro making amends for an earlier miss.

A Paul Lawson attempt was blocked in the crammed penalty area and Scott Boyd took a wild swing. It fell to Munro to power past Hutton from eight yards.

County mostly retained a grip on the second half although Paul Currie flashed a header wide of target for Accies just after the hour.

Five minutes later, Vigurs collected a short Brittain corner on the right and sent an audacious strike into the Jail End from the tightest of angles.

The game was finely balanced towards the close and home keeper Michael Fraser was the match of a Grant Anderson dig from distance.

A tense finish failed to rattle County, with Accies’ Billy Reid admitting: “I don’t think there was anything in the game but we have to find that cutting edge in the last third. They got the goal from a bit of a stramash but I thought we controlled the second half and deserved a point.”