Seven Pressley salutes Dundee’s patience after beating nine-man Kilmarnock

Steven Pressley praised his Dundee players for staying patient as they recovered from the loss of an early goal to win 2-1 and knock nine-man Kilmarnock out of the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup at Rugby Park.

Dominic Thompson’s early goal gave the home team a half-time lead but Dundee, who dominated much of the game, gradually wore them down.

Ashley Hay claimed a deserved equaliser before Drey Wright took advantage of a defensive mix-up to claim the winning goal late on against a Kilmarnock side, who had Jack Thomson and Lewis Mayo both sent off late on.

Pressley said: “I didn’t want another hard luck story. Going into the Hearts game (last weekend), we’d won three consecutive games and then played particularly well against Hearts.

“We were deserving of far more than we got from that game. We were obviously concerned it was going to be another game like that where the team had given so much.

“It was the message at half-time. We needed to be more ruthless in the box because we created a lot of opportunities in the first half. But the second thing was to be patient and keep playing the way we wanted to play.

“I genuinely am exceptionally proud of the group — really, really proud. I speak about us being brave in possession and braver out of possession. I thought we showed that in abundance.”

Kilmarnock goalkeeper Kelle Roos was involved in the mix-up with defender Robbie Deas that led to Wright’s winner, but manager Neil McCann did not want to put too much blame on the debutant.

He said: “It was just a communication mistake. Big Kelle is just in the door. It might’ve been a little bit of a breakdown in terms of the messages.

“Of course, the mistake that leads to their second goal is a sore one to take. A wee bit of miscommunication hurts us. Kelle is just in the door yesterday. He’s still got to know certain shouts and instructions in the back four.

“I thought he was excellent apart from that, making good saves. He looked like he is the goalkeeper in terms of what we were looking for. He’s apologised in the dressing room, as has Robbie. He’s just trying to win the header. All we can do as a group is accept that and own it.

“I’m gutted for the fans that we’ve been knocked out of the cup, but I’m also so disappointed for the players.”