by Brian Corry at St Mirren Park

Saints boss Gus MacPherson, as expected, was regretting his sides failure to capture all 3 points this evening despite a good overall performance

He said: "I'm bitterly disappointed that we have not capitalised on it, it's the most 'good' chances we have created in a game. You would expect us to score in those opportunities but we'll just need to keep plugging away and believe we are doing the right things.

"We create chances like that against a really good Motherwell side who without a shadow of a doubt are the form team at the moment. We created 3 or 4 clear cut chances, so I'm frustrated we never turned any of them into goals."

Gus believes that Andy Dorman's recent goal drought was the major factor in the midfielder not converting one of his two opportunities: "I think the first chance comes to him within seconds of being on the park but the second one I think he just snatches at it as he's just desperate to get on the score sheet.

"Probably last year he would have taken that round the keeper as if he wasn't there, but he's just snatched at it."

The Saints gaffer also believes that if the side can perform like this they will soon find themselves clear of the relegation zone: "You've got to have the belief and the confidence as we're doing a lot of the right things, but that's the hardest part of the game to turn these opportunities into goals.

"The teams that are in the position they are in are the teams that are not taking the chances. If we can turn these performances into wins we'll be okay but I look at our home form and that's 8 draws we've had and without a shadow of a doubt, 4 of these should have been maximum points. It's been our Achilles heel not turning those performances into 3 points."

Motherwell manager Craig Brown conceded that his side were second best tonight, and took responsibility for this by changing his tactics from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2.

He said: "Sometimes when you play like that, you're a bit embarrassed, and people watching us and hearing we're playing quite well, which we have been, see that first half performance and think 'my god'.

"But I take responsibility for that as I asked them to play a shape they weren't so familiar with and it wasn't to match up with St Mirren it was our playing resources as I thought we had the players to play 3-5-2, which I played a lot with the Scotland team and it was very successful and it won.

"I said to the lads 'don't blame the shape, blame me asking you to play it without sufficient practice at it'. That shape won in Germany, that shape won at Wembley, it played Brazil, it's not the shape it's the lack of preparation we had, and I had to say that to them and apologise for asking them to do things they are not used to it."

He also accepted that Motherwell's goalkeeper John Ruddy had been a key player for his side: "He had a couple of saves that were very good, one of them in particular, but he makes saves you'd hope your keeper would make and sometimes its international stuff.

"I think one of them in particular was outstanding and I've got to admit that Andy Dorman missed a good chance for St Mirren, and we hardly created a chance so I'm a bit humbled at our performance I have to say."

Although disappointed at the performance of his own side, Brown took time to praise Saints: "Those of you who have seen us play, we are much better than that but St Mirren are fighting for their lives - they're doing well, they're organised, they're competitive and they are going to get points.

"And you see the difficulty allegedly better sides than Motherwell have against them so you've got to give credit to St Mirren and Gus MacPherson."

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