Oli Shaw insists Ross County should never have allowed a three-goal lead to slip in their League Cup opener.
The Staggies were 3-0 up against Montrose with half an hour left at Links Park on Wednesday night before the Gable Endies hit back to draw, although the Dingwall side won the penalty shoot-out 5-4 to claim a bonus point.
Striker Shaw, who netted County’s opener, says the Premiership side were left to rue missed chances to put the game to bed.
The 22-year-old said: “It’s disappointing – we know individually and collectively it wasn’t good enough – being 3-0 up to losing three goals in the space of 25 minutes.
“We know that’s not good enough so it’s case of cleaning the slate and going again in the next game.
“It’s hard to say what was the turning point really. They made a few changes and went more direct which caused us problems.
“But we still had chances in the game to kill it and we didn’t take them which gave them more confidence.
“We could have been 4-1 up with the chances, but they hit the bar and had a few other things in the first half so that gave us a wake-up call that we needed to take the chances we had to kill it.
“We didn’t do it and they got confidence and managed to get the equaliser.”
With the score at 3-2 County appeared to have taken the sting out of the game and stalled Montrose’s momentum before Andrew Steeves grabbed an 89th minute equaliser.
Shaw added: “I felt we had weathered the storm a bit (at 2-3). We’d had the chances that we didn’t take and the two goals we conceded weren’t good enough.
“But we put our put our foot on the ball and took the sting out of the game – but when you’re three goals up you shouldn’t be drawing the game.
“Winning the shoot-out is maybe a slight positive. But from the position we were in and where we wanted to be being 3-0 up and conceding the goals we did to draw was disappointing.”
Shaw’s goal at Links Park was his goal for County after joining from Hibs in January, although there wasn’t much cause for celebration when it should have helped his team to three points rather than two.
He said: “On a personal note it was good to get off the mark and get my first goal for the club and hopefully it’s the first of many.
“But it’s a disappointing night on the whole losing on the three goals that we did.
“It wasn’t playing on my mind or anything I was just playing my football and felt it would come.
“But after scoring I wanted us to win the game after it.
“You can’t think about getting that first goal as a striker because if you do it will play on your mind and you’ll miss easier chances as a result. I just want to help the team in any way I can.”
