Stumbling St Johnstone offered up a shoddy response to falling behind and failed to distance themselves from the Premiership’s bottom two.
Ross County, who sit second-from-bottom, ran out comfortable winners in Perth thanks to goals from Simon Murray and David Cancola.
Their first victory on the road since November moves them to within five points of Saints, who were booed off the pitch at both half-time and full-time.
Early doors, Liam Gordon had a wonderful fourth minute chance from David Wotherspoon’s corner.
He timed his movement in the box nicely but the powerful header which followed edged the wrong side of the post.
Not so long after Dan Phillips again showed off his clever ball control with a delicious turn to keep hold of attacking momentum.
The ball was eventually touched into the path of Adam Montgomery who fired across and wide of the goal.
Before the half hour mark the left wing-back had also whistled a fantastic delivery across the face of goal but, from close range, there were no takers.
Ross County, dealing with the early blow of losing Eamon Brophy through injury, had looked dangerous going forward in the early stages.
Powerful forward Jordan White was putting his weight about and went close with a 27th minute header from a Josh Sims cross.
It appeared the teams would be heading in at the break level but suddenly there was a flurry of activity.
Drey Wright almost opened the scoring with a low effort at the near post - well-saved by Ross Laidlaw - then Gordon nodded over from a very promising position.
That came back to bite in the 45th minute when a simple, long kick forward by Laidlaw was flicked on by White.
Murray won the foot race and, from just inside the box, he slammed beyond Remi Matthews with power and accuracy.
It would get worse in the 49th minute when George Harmon’s corner dropped for Cancola to find the back of the net.
Three changes would soon follow with Alex Mitchell, Jamie Murphy and Connor McLennan replacing Liam Gordon, James Brown and Zak Rudden.
County looked the more threatening and Matthews needed to be alert to stop Murray from adding a third on 64 minutes.
Phillips’ strike from the edge of the box did force Laidlaw into a low save but it was never troubling the back of the net.
Woeful miscommunication between David Wotherspoon and Mitchell then presented White with a route through to goal. He attempted to round Matthews but was thwarted.
Phillips hit the post late on but Saints were deservedly beaten.
