Dundee’s Nathan Ralph was left to lament the disappointing nature of the defeat against Motherwell on Saturday as his team paid the painful price for failing to capitalise on their overall dominance.
The Dark Blues started the game looking to build on the morale-boosting win over Hearts last Wednesday at Tynecastle that lifted them off the bottom of the Premiership table.
They produced a succession of chances against Motherwell but couldn’t take them and were left to rue that failing when the Steelmen produced a smash-and-grab raid to secure all three points thanks to a second-half penalty.
It was a bitter pill for Dundee to swallow but Ralph is hoping to quickly sample the sweet taste of success once more tomorrow night when the Dark Blues travel to Palmerston for their Scottish Cup replay with Queen of the South.
The left-back, who produced a man-of-the-match performance against Motherwell, said: “It was a very sore one to take.
“The way we played I felt we were the better team for most of the game and we had a lot of chances.
“We can’t really beat ourselves up too much – it was just one of those days where it didn’t go for us.
“Obviously we were disappointed with the penalty but Motherwell have taken their chance and then just held out making it difficult to play against after that.
“It is frustrating but we have a big game on Tuesday to stay in the cup so we just have to look forward to that.”
Ralph’s boss Jim McIntyre was also left ruing the one that got away.
The manager said: “To say it was frustrating is stating the obvious because we put so much into the game.
“We didn’t deserve to lose that game, in my opinion we deserved to win it.
“But we didn’t punish Motherwell in the first half when we were on top and paid the price for a bad decision in our own penalty box.
“In our position we need points so you have to make better decisions and convert the pressure into points.
“But that’s the way I want my teams to play – we played with energy, we battled and we created chances.
“You have to take them though, that’s the thing.
“So there are plenty of positives to take from the way we played. It’s just about getting that decision-making a bit better.
“Overall I was really pleased with the performance even if we didn’t get the result we deserved.”
Meanwhile, Jesse Curran looks certain to miss the Scottish Cup tie after coming off with a hamstring injury just nine minutes into the game with the Steelmen.
