Wright Hails Striker Cummins

Photo by Jeff Holmes

St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright paid tribute to striker Graham Cummins after the striker saved his side with a second-half equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Ross County in the Premiership.

The Saints had been second best in the first half at McDiarmid Park on Tuesday and trailed to Craig Curran's 17th-minute strike before putting on an improved showing after the break.

Cummins hit the post from close-range early in the second half before scoring with an impressive finish on 52 minutes to make it three goals in as many league games for his new side.

The result means St Johnstone are still without a win in their league campaign so far, but Wright believes the Irishman's goal threat gives his team reason to be optimistic.

It was a superb finish,'' said Wright.He was unlucky with the first chance that hit the post. It took a deflection off the defender but the second one is obviously a more difficult chance. He does that every day in training.

He is a really good finisher and someone who is in a really good vein of form. He has hit the ground running which all strikers like to do. I have been really pleased with him and long may it continue.

He is a goalscorer but it was written and said that his goalscoring record wasn't good. If you go back to when he was at Cork he scored 42 goals in 60 games in a decent league. He had a big money move to Preston but didn't really play where he should in terms of his position. He played more out wide.

If you play him in the middle he will score goals and at the moment he is proving he can do that. It is something we have probably struggled with down the years.

Stevie May is an exceptional talent and look at what we were able to achieve with someone who scored that many goals - we had a Cup semi-final, won a Cup and finished top-six so any team would be crying out with for a goalscorer and Graham has done really well.''

Ross County manager Jim McIntyre felt his side should have been further in front at half-time after producing an impressive start to the match.

I thought we started the game really well, which was something we had spoken about in the dressing room before the game,'' he said.

We wanted to make sure we got off to a good start. In the first two games of the season we gave away a penalty in the third minute so we wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. I thought we did a lot of things well and put St Johnstone under a lot of pressure.

In terms of the chances we created first half I think we should have been more goals ahead than what we were. Second half, credit to St Johnstone I think they started a lot better than we did and had us under a lot of pressure but again I was really pleased with how we responded to that.

We didn't let that affect us for too long before getting back into the game and I think as the game was getting towards the end it was getting very stretched.

Credit to both teams, we both made positive changes to try and win the match rather than be content with our luck so I think it was a decent match to watch for the viewing public.''

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