Oisin Smyth earns victory for St Mirren with late free-kick winner

Oisin Smyth was the St Mirren match-winner as they secured a late 2-1 William Hill Premiership victory over Ross County at Dingwall.

The Northern Irishman found the back of the net directly from a free-kick a minute from time to seal all three points for the visitors, who had earlier been reduced to 10 men when Scott Tanser was shown a second yellow card.

Former County man Alex Iacovitti had opened the scoring in the first half, only for Michee Efete to draw level for the Staggies immediately from the restart.

After a cagey start in particularly poor conditions, Noah Chilvers went close for the home side when he curled an effort just wide of the mark from the edge of the box.

The deadlock was broken in the 27th minute though, when a former County player came back to haunt them.

Jack Hamilton failed to gather Smyth’s free-kick that was swung towards goal, spilling it into the path of Iacovitti, who scored in front of his former fans to put St Mirren 1-0 ahead.

Right on the cusp of the interval, Josh Nisbet let fly with an effort that summed up County’s half, going closer to the corner flag than the back of the net.

Just 28 seconds into the second half though, the Staggies did level up as Efete found the bottom corner after the ball fell kindly to him inside the St Mirren box.

Ten minutes after the restart, Tanser was shown as second yellow card for a late challenge on Aidan Denholm, seeing things go from bad to even worse for the visitors.

With around 20 minutes left, Mikael Mandon showed that the visitors still had some threat about them, going close with a shot that took a deflection on the way though.

Smyth would provide another reminder of that with a curling effort in the 78th minute, shortly before Jonah Ayunga forced a good save out of Jack Hamilton.

At the other end, Kacper Lopata fired the ball across the face of goal after gathering the ball from a Chilvers free-kick, only for Akil Wright to fire wide from close range.

But Smyth became the hero as he fired a free-kick from 19 yards out into the top corner in the 89th minute to seal all three points for St Mirren.