Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell is confident the Staggies are finding their feet in the Premiership.
County have enjoyed a fine start to the top flight campaign since stepping up from the Championship last term, and sit fifth after seven games.
The Staggies’ 0-0 draw against Kilmarnock on Saturday took County’s haul of points to seven from their last three games since suffering back-to-back losses against Livingston and Aberdeen.
Kettlewell, whose side host St Johnstone this weekend, is refusing to get carried away but he is encouraged by the early signs from the Dingwall men.
He said: “I hate to say we feel as if we’ve settled in. When you think that, that’s when the next hit is around the corner.
“But from our point of view we certainly feel like we’ve found our footing in the division.
“We feel as if we’re in a reasonable position up to this point and we’ve got to look forward to another home game.
“It was a real stern test for us at the weekend.
“We were playing a team that had such a good year last season, finishing third in the league. It was testament to ourselves we were able to keep a clean sheet.
“They will maybe argue they missed some good chances, but we see it as another really good away performance.
“We came up the road and felt pretty positive with the nature of the result and performance, especially defensively.”
The most notable incident in Saturday’s Rugby Park stalemate came when goalkeeper Ross Laidlaw saved a second half penalty from Killie forward Osman Sow.
Laidlaw’s intervention came just a fortnight after a glaring error which led to a goal for St Mirren’s Tony Andreu in a match at Victoria Park.
Notwithstanding the penalty save, Kettlewell has been impressed with Laidlaw’s response in matches against Motherwell and Killie, adding: “The penalty save captured the headlines, but I thought Ross was very steady following on from what happened.
“We saw it with Scott Fox before here, with probably to my mind one of the most high-profile mistakes there’s been in Scottish football from a goalkeeper in a long time.
“It happened down at our away end against Rangers, and he showed the strength of character and big Ross has done so in the last couple of weeks as well.
“These things happen. We don’t condone it, we don’t want it to happen every week, but it shows a great sense of character and the quality Ross has to come back and perform as he has done.”
