Ross County manager Derek Adams praised his First Division side for their performance in their Scottish Cup tie at St Mirren.

The visitors took a first-half lead from the spot thanks to Richard Brittain, but the same player blasted well over in the closing seconds of the game when he had a golden opportunity to book a quarter-final place for his team.

County now face fitting the Valentine's Day replay into a jam-packed month already scheduled to contain six league fixtures, but the 1-1 draw extended their impressive unbeaten run to 16 games in all competitions.

Adams said: "We played very well and I thought we deserved to win. We missed a penalty with the last kick of the ball, but overall I thought we had a very good performance.

"That's probably why we're top of the league at this stage of the season, that performance showed the qualities we have, and it was a good afternoon for us as we acquitted ourselves very well.

"I thought my players were terrific today. We knew that we could cause St Mirren problems at the back and knew that if we could suck them in, they would leave space for us.

"The chances we created down the side and one on one were pleasing from my point of view; the one thing I didn't want was a draw, but we've got that."

Of Brittain's two contrasting penalties, he added: "Richie's been great for us and he does very well at taking penalty kicks.

"His first one was great and it was good play from us to earn it, a great ball from him to Stuart Kettlewell who took on (Craig) Samson; the second penalty was great for St Mirren, but Richie has been terrific and will take other penalties and put it in the top corner this time."

St Mirren manager Danny Lennon apologised to the Paisley team's fans for their showing, saying: "The most disappointing thing for me was that that wasn't us out there, and there were a lot of things I saw creeping in that haven't been there for a long time.

"Even when things aren't going the way you want, you still have to earn the right to play and I don't think we did that in portions of the game, especially not in the first half.

"When you're not getting that success or teams are stopping you playing, you have to adapt; we'd spoken about importance of urgency and tempo and I just didn't see it today.

"We had one inspirational bit of brilliance and scored from that, but thereafter the only wee bit of lift we got was the 10 minutes that Graham Carey came on, so the only thing we can take out of this is that we're still in the cup.

"Neither team on its own really deserved to win, although with the last-minute penalty, Ross County will feel that they had a very good opportunity to do that.

"What I'd like to say is to apologise to our wonderful supporters who invest their hard-earned cash and their emotions - they didn't see the true identity of their team today.

"I have to complement Ross County as they're a very well-organised side and you can see why they're leading that First Division; they made life very difficult for us and can certainly be content and delighted with their existing form and taking an SPL club back to the Highlands for a replay."