'We're unhappy and we're hurting' - Cowie

Ross County "know they've let themselves down," according to manager Don Cowie, who demands a positive response to their League Cup embarrassment.

The Premiership side crashed out at the last 16 stage after going down 1-0 to League 2 team The Spartans and Cowie said "everyone is unhappy".

But the manager insists his team must start righting their wrongs from their flop against the Edinburgh-based part-timers when they return to action with a trip to Hampden in the league on Saturday to, followed by a home match against Aberdeen prior to the international break.

“The fans are rightly unhappy,” said the Staggies boss. “We’re all unhappy, we’re an honest group and football club and we know when we’ve let ourselves down.

“The fans came and supported us, as they always do, and like us they were thinking this was a great opportunity to progress in the cup.

“We can put that right now going into the league campaign by showing them that we’re hurting from this defeat.”

Henderson’s goal came just 20 seconds into the second half when he exquisitely headed home Jamie Dishington's fine cross.

“The frustration is we conceded so early after half-time,” added Cowie. “We spoke about it, about not giving them any encouragement.

“To concede within 30 seconds of the restart, that was really disappointing but we had more than enough time to bring the game back into our hands and we didn’t do enough. We huffed and puffed and that’s the biggest frustration.”