Scottish Premiership: Ross County 1-1 Rangers

Both sides were guilty of poor marking from corners in the first half

Rangers missed the chance to go second in the Scottish Premiership as they were held to a draw at bottom side Ross County.

In a first half littered with errors, Clint Hill rose unopposed to head the visitors in front from an eighth-minute corner.

Andrew Davies then levelled in almost identical fashion.

Liam Boyce shot wide for County late on, with Rangers' James Tavernier drilling into the side-netting.

Rangers nudge above Hearts into third place, while the Staggies close to within a point of Dundee.

County's run without a win extends to 10 games and, while Jim McIntyre's men will take confidence from their showing, there remains room for improvement in defence.

The same applies to Rangers, who had chances to stretch their lead before County's equaliser.

The opening goal came from a cheaply conceded corner, from which no-one picked up Hill and the veteran defender powered in a header.

County responded with Davies seeing his header kicked off the line in what was an unheeded warning for Rangers.

The Dingwall defence continued to creak, with a Marcus Fraser slip allowing Joe Garner in, but the striker hesitated for too long.

Rangers then engineered a four-on-two situation on the counter-attack and, when Lee Wallace played in Kenny Miller, a second goal looked inevitable but his effort hit the side-netting.

County always looked promising going forward and were given encouragement by some poor distribution from visiting goalkeeper Wes Foderingham.

The equaliser appeared to be straight off the training ground. From a corner, everyone raced to the front post, defenders were blocked and Davies peeled away to the back, where Chris Burke's inch-perfect delivery arrived.

The calamitous defending continued when Tavernier inexplicably played the ball back, Boyce almost nipped in, and Foderingham clearly handled to get himself out of trouble. However, the incident went unpunished to the fury of the Staggies bench.

Rangers goalscorer Hill (right) applauds the visiting fans at full-time

There were fewer lapses in concentration after the interval, making it a less entertaining spectacle, but the game remained on a knife edge.

Foderingham saved from Boyce, before Miller saw a great angled effort beaten away by Scott Fox.

In the closing stages, County's Tim Chow fired over, wasting a great opportunity. Substitute Alex Schalk then released Boyce, who fired a hurried shot narrowly wide.

In the 90th minute, Tavernier took a touch as he approached the six-yard box from the right but fired wide from an angle when a first time shot might have paid off.

There was still time for Schalk to give Foderingham a fright with a swerving strike that keeper awkwardly fended off.

With both sides showing tremendous desire to win, both could argue they might have deserved maximum points given the chances they had a different stages.

Neither did with the single point perhaps a better outcome for County given their position.

Ross County defender Andrew Davies: "I just felt we had some really good opportunities in the final third where we could have maybe done a little bit better.

"We've had six or seven weeks where results have not gone our way and it was very easy to play today against a very good team and fold.

"But the lads grafted for each other and I'm proud of every single one of them.

"We've worked on a lot of corners. It hasn't been coming off for us in the last few games, but when you do something like that, it is full credit to the manager.

"This club is the best I've ever been at for working on set plays and I think they are so important because they get you goals."

Rangers manager Mark Warburton: "We were looking for the three points - it's two points dropped and that's no disrespect to County.

"We weren't playing as well as we wanted to play, but we had chances in the first half. You can't give up opportunities like that.

"If we get a consistent high level of performance then the results will come.

"You are where you are. We dropped two points by being sloppy and not clinical enough.

"We got the early goal and then we had six counter-attacks that we had to take advantage of and get ourselves out of sight.

"Last week was very good, but we want to make sure our average is much better than that. I thought we did enough to be out of sight by half-time."