Stuart Kettlewell admits that his side’s 1-1 draw away to Kilmarnock was very much a game of two halves as the Motherwell manager reflected on what could be a crucial point gained in the Steelmen’s bid to beat the drop.
The visitors struggled during the opening 45 minutes at Rugby Park and were trailing to Scott Robinson’s goal but the players improved after the interval as they applied some heavy pressure to the Killie goal.
Callum Slattery’s superb late free-kick rescued a point for Motherwell, meaning that Kettlewell’s men have now picked up seven points from the last available nine.
“We can probably sit here and say that it will be massive but it will be the next 11 games that define whether it is,” Kettlewell said of Slattery’s late intervention. “I do feel that it’s a big moment in our season.
“It would have been really easy for us to go under after the first-half performance and not acquit ourselves as we did in the second half.
“Obviously Callum Slattery comes up with an absolute wonder strike but we probably had five really good opportunities before that where we could see the whites of their goalkeeper’s eyes.
“He ends up getting man of the match but it wasn’t for his first-half performance, it was for his second-half performance. I think that signifies that what we did in the second half was a lot better than the first 45.
“I thought that Kilmarnock were good in the first half and I thought we were the better side in the second half.
“I need to acknowledge how difficult a place this is to come and get something. Kilmarnock have been excellent at home and they are so difficult to play against.
“They are well-organised, well-structured and I thought they carried a real threat in the first 45. So the most pleasing aspect for me was the response of our group.”
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