TOMMY Wright last night admitted that Kilmarnock’s naïve defending cost them a vital victory against St Mirren in their battle to beat Premiership relegation.

The Rugby Park club led by 2-0 and 3-2 against their Paisley rivals – but allowed the visitors to level late on and deny them a win.

The Ayrshire outfit now need to beat Hamilton away on Sunday and hope Ross County lose at Motherwell to avoid the play-off final.

But Wright insists his charges are in a positive frame of mind thanks to the goals that Kyle Lafferty, who has netted 12 times in 10 games since returning to Scotland, is scorng.

 "I have mixed emotions,” he said. “We did more than enough to win the game, even with a late chance at 3-3.

"We created more chances, but we were naive twice to lose goals after scoring. We should have won the game, but as a team we played a part in the fact we didn't.

"We were naive at the restarts from our goals. We fell asleep and that cost us. If you look at how we played and how many chances we created, we could have scored more.

"But we haven't kept enough clean sheets and that's as a team. However, we are creating chances and that's a positive going into the final game.

"If we win and Ross County lose, then we stay up. If that doesn't happen then I think we will go into the play-off with confidence.”