Stuart Kettlewell pleased with ‘comfortable’ Kilmarnock victory over St Mirren

Manager Stuart Kettlewell felt Kilmarnock were never under any threat as they ran out 2-0 victors over St Mirren at Rugby Park.

Goals from David Watson and Marcus Dackers had the home side in front by half-time, a lead they never looked like relinquishing as they moved above their opponents in the William Hill Premiership.

Stephen Robinson’s side have established a reputation as one of the form teams in the division which added to Kettlewell’s satisfaction as his team built on last weekend’s away win over Dundee United.

He said: “There’s been a lot of praise for St Mirren and how they’re performing and going about their business. We knew it was going to be a tough game.

“Conditions added a wee bit into that as well. But I probably feel it was as comfortable a victory as you’re ever going to get against St Mirren, to be honest with you. That’s no disrespect to them as I’m a huge advocate of what Stephen does.

“But I never felt under threat. That clean sheet is massive for us as well, that we kept our concentration to see ourselves to another three points. We just need to keep that level of consistency moving forward, as challenging as that can be.

“Our goal and our thought process is we can and we will get better. We’ll need to because this league throws up so many challenges.

“So don’t get carried away with yourself. Two wins, two clean sheets, two excellent performances. Monkey off the back, I suppose, with a home win and an away win. But we want to build on it.”

St Mirren looked to have a strong case for a penalty for handball against Robbie Deas late in the first half but a clearly frustrated Robinson felt his team would barely have merited it had it been given.

He said: “We had 63% possession but have gone nowhere. It was everything we’re not.

“We work on having control of the game when we’ve earned the right to have control of the game. We never did that at any stage. We refused to deliver balls (into the penalty box).

“You’re playing on a horrible pitch in horrendous weather and they played it much better than us.

“Before the game we said to play the conditions. It can’t be perfect, it’ll be a horrible game.

“You lose games if you don’t play to your strengths and we certainly didn’t do that. The referee certainly didn’t influence the result in my opinion.”