St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin heaped praise on his players as they dug deep to claim a crucial 2-1 home win over Ross County.

Sam Foley's late strike helped lift the Buddies into 10th place in the Ladbrokes Premiership table after Sean McLoughlin had cancelled out Brian Graham's opener for County.

Goodwin said: "I'm a happy man – I am always happy when we win. I am a wee bit frustrated because I think it could have been a bit more comfortable. But I am delighted for the players because they showed some tremendous character after going a goal down.

"We really pushed hard in that second half and what a goal it was to win it. I just think we can make life less edgy for us. But a draw wouldn't have been enough for us today.

"We had to go and win that game and that's what we did. The equaliser came at a good time and it changed my team talk. But we camped ourselves in their half in the second half and I don't think the County boys will have too many complaints about the final result."

Goodwin admitted he feared the fans might have turned against them had they not found that late winner.

He added: "We were probably about five minutes away from being booed off the park so we got a nice ovation in the end. Sam will get all the plaudits but the changes we made all had an impact.

"Tony Andreu and Kyle McAllister both did well. We got into some great positions and we didn't work the goalkeeper. That's definitely something we need to sort out."

County were left frustrated at an eighth league match in a row without a win. Co-manager Steven Ferguson admitted they did not deserve to take anything from the game.

He said: "It's really disappointing from our point of view. I am not going to sit here and say we deserved anything from the game following that second-half performance.

"We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot because we are not doing things properly. We didn't do nearly enough in the second half and that's a massive frustration from our point of view."