Ross County midfielder Don Cowie insists the penalty which turned Saturday’s 3-1 loss into Kilmarnock’s favour should not have been awarded.
With the game locked at 1-1 after 57 minutes, Killie striker Eamonn Brophy was handed the chance to net his second goal from the spot after Coll Donaldson was penalised for fouling Chris Burke by referee Willie Collum.
Cowie was left frustrated by assistant referee Craig Ferguson failing to flag for Burke being offside, with the goal swinging momentum into Killie’s favour at a crucial stage in the game.
Cowie said: “They got a penalty, which should never happen. I have seen it and Burke is a yard offside.
“It should never get to that point, he’s standing right in front of the linesman. He didn’t give it, and then it’s a dubious penalty.
“It has a knock-on effect, but that’s no excuse. After it gets to 2-1 we need to respond better, and we probably didn’t do enough after that.
“The momentum swung into Killie’s favour because they are a team that’s searching for a win, just like ourselves.
“Sometimes you get the rub of the green, but after seeing it they definitely got that.
“I was right beside it and I didn’t think it was a penalty. It’s one of those, where you’ve got to know it’s a penalty.
“At no stage did I think it was a clear penalty. It was probably a good stride offside initially, so we feel hard done by.”
Cowie bemoaned his side squandering their first half lead through Iain Vigurs’ strike, with Killie going on to add a further late goal courtesy of Nicke Kabamba.
The former Scotland international added: “Kilmarnock scored a goal which changed the game completely.
“We came out in the first 10 minutes of the second half and we felt comfortable. I thought we looked solid like we had done throughout the game, and then they scored a goal which changed the whole atmosphere within the stadium.
“It gave them a big lift. We just didn’t respond really.
“We wanted to win, on the back of two extremely tough away games against the Old Firm where we acquitted ourselves really well.
“We lost the two games, but coming into this we felt we had more than enough to come here and win.
“When you are 1-0 up at half-time, you want to go on and get the three points.
“There is big disappointment there.”
Cowie recently returned from a long-term knee injury, with the 36-year-old eager to return to winning ways after a run of eight games without a victory.
He added: “It’s not something I expected – three starts in a week after being out for nine months.
“It’s a real bonus for me, but I would swap that for three points any day.”
