Thumbs down

Adrian Beck believes 10man Hamilton could have performed a smash-and-grab at St Mirren, but says a point is a good result.

The German midfielder set up Blair Alston for a long-range pile-driver that Saints keeper Václav Hladký did well to turn around the left post corner.

In all honesty the Czech keeper had almost nothing to do up until that point, but Alston actually came closest to scoring in a poor game in Paisley.

Saints’ Jonathan Obika had a header late on that was well saved by Owain Fon-williams, but an offside flag had gone up against the English striker.

The Paisley side probably should have done better after Accies striker George Oakley was shown a second yellow card for a ‘challenge’ on Sean Mcloughlin that TV pictures appeared to show wasn’t even a foul.

To be fair, the English striker’s badly mis-timed challenge on Ryan Flynn in 21 minutes could have merited more than the booking he received.

That was more or less it; Accies never really got going in the first half, and while St Mirren dominated possession, they did very little with it.

Oakley’s dismissal, harsh as it may be, meant Hamilton were never going to be able to create much and the back four repelled pretty much everything that St Mirren were able to throw at it... which wasn’t much.

Saints fans should actually be slightly concerned that even with an extra man they weren’t able to pile more pressure on Accies; Owain Fon-williams didn’t really have a save to make for 90 minutes, though that was partly down to the central defensive partnership of Brian Easton and Sam Stubbs that was in front of him, while Aaron Mcgowan and Scott Mcmann more than played their part, too.

Beck reckons Hamilton could have sneaked the win with that Alston effort, but is happy overall with a point.

The 22-year-old, who is on a seasonlong loan from Belgian side Union Saint-gilloise, said: “I think it was a really difficult game for us offensively with 10 men, we had not so many chances, so if this one goes in [Alston’s shot] it would be very nice for us, but I think in the end we can be very happy with this point.

“The result could give the team some spirit, though. The team was fighting for every ball and for our fight we deserved a point. It was a little bit lucky, but it was deserved.

“St Mirren, in the end, they had a header after a free kick, which was their biggest chance, but it was shots from distance other than that.

“Overall we defended it well; there were a lot of crosses, but no big chances, so it was OK from the team.”

Beck added: “With one man down it’s normal that it changes tactics a little bit, because the position goes nearly completely to St Mirren.

“You don’t have a lot of chances. Offensively, you just try to defend, to concede no goals.

“Defensively we did very well and offensively we had just one chance, but we have to live with this point.

“We wanted to win, but after the red card we must be happy with one point.”