Ross wants Saints to believe after stunning win at Dundee

JACK ROSS last night urged his St Mirren shock troops to use their 2-0 Scottish Cup fourth round win over Dundee at Dens Park as a springboard to pull off an unlikely escape act at the foot of the Championship.

Goals from ex-Dundee striker John Sutton and defender Jack Baird carved out the surprise of the day on Tayside and provided a fillip for a side who had failed to win in their previous five outings.

St Mirren languish seven points adrift at the bottom of the second tier, but manager Ross hopes they will now have realised what they are capable of and go on to pull themselves clear of the drop zone.

‘When you are written off, it should drive you on to prove people wrong,’ he stated. ‘My belief in the players to go and win games hasn’t changed. I have tried to freshen things up and I will continue to do that, but the core, I believe, are good enough.

‘The players will have to answer individually over how this affects them, but I think it will help them. They have come to a

Premiership team that’s been in good form and they’ve deserved to win the game.

‘We’ve not had to hang on or won fortunately. I hope they take enormous belief from it because they deserve to do so.

‘I’m pleased for them because this group has endured a difficult season. They’ve come in for criticism on a regular basis, so for them to get the reward for their performances was great because they haven’t always had that in recent months.

‘They should enjoy this day, reflect on it tomorrow, and then come back and replicate that in the coming league games.

‘They haven’t looked like a team at the bottom of the Championship in a lot of the games I’ve been in charge for. We haven’t always gained as many points as I thought we deserved, but we got both things right here — the performance and the result.

‘The clean sheet aspect makes a difference, too, because we have not had many of them this season.

‘That makes it difficult to win games on a regular basis.’