Jordan Tillson says Ross County must use the low of Wednesday’s humiliating defeat by Motherwell to trigger a reaction.
County fell to a 5-0 loss at home to the Steelmen, to suffer their heaviest loss during Malky Mackay’s tenure at Victoria Park.
The result keeps the Staggies just three points above bottom side Dundee United, with only one win from their opening nine Premiership games.
Midfielder Tillson described the crushing defeat as his most painful moment since joining the Staggies from Exeter City in 2020.
Tillson says the scars of the defeat must drive a reaction from the Dingwall outfit.
He said: “We’re going to have to use this to learn. It is obviously not good enough.
“We have to go again and this has to be a reset button now for our season.
“In football, there are highs and lows and Tuesday night was a real low.
“But we need to use it to learn from.
“It is probably as tough a night as I’ve had since joining Ross County.
“In my time at the club, this hasn’t really happened before and we want to make sure it is a one-off.
“I think we have a strong enough group here to sort this out.
“It does happen in football sometimes, but we have to apologise to the fans.
“It wasn’t good enough in the second half and we’ll go again.”
Second half display fell long way below standard for Staggies
The Staggies had performed promisingly in the first half, albeit falling behind to a Kevin Van Veen penalty.
County were swept aside after the break however, with Van Veen completing his hat-trick, while Callum Slattery and Joe Efford were also among the goals.
It was another poor second 45 minutes from the Staggies, who were defeated 2-0 by Hibernian at the weekend.
Tillson is keen to learn lessons from the recent disappointments.
The Englishman added: “It is a sore one to take. We had a real go in the first half and I thought it was quite even, although they took the lead from the penalty spot.
“In the second half, unfortunately, we just didn’t come out of the traps. It was similar to the Hibs game.
“We conceded early, just like against Hibs, and again we never recovered.
“We will watch it back and discover why it happened and we have to learn from it. We can’t let it happen again.”
Tillson is eager to make the most of the quick opportunity to get the result out of the system, when County make the trip to Livingston on Saturday.
The 29-year-old said: “We have to get ready for that now. We will look at what happened against Motherwell and get ourselves back up for what is another really important match for us.
“I think we can look back and learn from it, but we need to draw a line under this and get back on it for Saturday.”
Conversation