The corridor in the main stand at Motherwell was no place for tender ears as the home players discussed their first-half performance against Ross County on Saturday.

And the dressing room at the interval was like a navvy’s yard as manager Stephen Robinson let his players know exactly what he thought of their performance.

Right-back Richard Tait, who by his own admission was one of the worst offenders to that point, could have picked one or two choice words of his own to describe his performance.

By the end though, with a goal and three points in the bag, Tait had proven that he and his teammates have the steel to recover from adversity, and he swears that Motherwell will never turn in a showing like the opening period against County again.

“It was shocking, and you could probably use other words to describe it too!” Tait said. “I don’t know what it was, I just wasn’t at it in the first half and was getting on top of myself a little bit, which I maybe shouldn’t.

“In the second half, I turned it around. Obviously when you score a goal that gives you a little bit of confidence and spurs you on a little bit. I feel like I redeemed myself and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to put the ball in the back of the net.

“We weren’t on the front foot as a team and we weren’t aggressive enough against them in the first half.

“They were picking up the ball and turning and getting at us, imposing their game on us instead of us imposing our game on them.

“We rode our luck to a certain extent, but I don’t think they had many chances in the first half, as bad as we were.

“We managed to stay in the game and then come out in the second half and impose ourselves on them.”

Tait’s storming second half showing on the left wing was all the more impressive when you consider that he is playing through injury at the moment.

“My pelvis is still a little bit sore,” he said. “I had the two operations and it hasn’t really been right since then, so I’ve been on the painkillers.

“I’m going to see someone about it and see if they can sort it out.”

While manager Robinson’s rage, and more pertinently, his tactical tinkering at half-time undoubtedly impacted Motherwell’s stark improvement, Tait revealed that a moment of inspiration from teammate Cedric Kipre served to pump the home players up.

“Not much of what the manager said at half time was repeatable, but obviously it worked,” said Tait.

“That’s 100% the Motherwell that we’re trying to be, that’s how we have to play to be where we want to be.

“At the start of the second half, big Cedric came through and won a big header against Craig Curran, and that got everybody going. We were suddenly five yards further up the pitch, Bowie (Ryan Bowman) chases a lost cause to get a throw-in in their half and things like that push you on.”

By managing to dig out the win against County, Tait has become convinced that there is much more about Motherwell this season than in recent years.

“I think we might not have won that game last year,” he said. “Last season, we possibly would have conceded in the first half and gone on to lose the game.

“The big difference this year is organisation. Everyone knows their jobs and knows what is expected.

“The bare minimum is that you work 110% or you will be coming off the pitch.

“I think that was the worst we have played and we came away with three points. We played well against Rangers and we did well in large spells against St Johnstone until we got the red cards.

“That’s football, sometimes you have to dig in to get the three points and we managed to do that.”