Accies on a roll displays deserve
Brian Easton admits Hamilton’s results haven’t been good enough this season, but hopes that after recording back-toback wins for the first time in almost two years they’re on a run that can take them up the Championship table.
The Accies captain says performances have been good for most of the campaign, but they’ve not scored enough goals or taken advantage often enough in games they should have seen through.
And after consecutive wins over Partick Thistle and Queen of the South as they head into Friday night’s showdown with Ayr United at Somerset Park, Easton hopes they’re finally getting the rewards their play has deserved.
“I think we’ve been playing some really good football this season,” said the 34-year-old defender.
“Results haven’t been perfect, and that’s definitely something we want to improve on.
“Nobody’s in there sitting saying we’re happy with where we are in the table just now.
“But I know we’re doing the right things and we’ve been waiting on results to start coming our way, so hopefully this is the start of a run.”
Easton added: “We are playing well, and we are scoring goals.
“When you look at it over the course of the season, we’ve probably dominated possession in most of our games, created loads of chances for strikers, midfielders, defenders at setpieces, and we’ve not been converting those chances enough.
“In a league that’s this tight, it could be one chance again that wins you these games and you can rack up the points.
“That’s all ifs, buts and maybes, but you can take confidence from the fact that we are playing well, and in the last couple of games we’ve had the rewards for that – especially with the clean sheets and the goals that we have been scoring.”
Stuart Taylor’s side followed up the 4-0 win over Thistle with a 1-0 triumph over 10-man Queen of the South, after Andy Winter fired in a 65th-minute clincher, moving them up to sixth in the table.
But Easton expects a tough clash at Somerset Park on Friday night, as Accies look to continue their recent run of form, which has seen then lose just once in their last nine games.
He said: “Winning back-to-back league games was one of the challenges set out before the game, and it’s actually bizarre to think of that being a statistic for us.
“But it’s brilliant just to get a win. We were excellent at Partick Thistle last week, and on Saturday it was quite a professional job.
“They were throwing absolutely everything at us at the end, and we managed to keep them out, so we’re delighted to get the three points and the clean sheet.
“It was massive to build on the win, especially with the run of games that we’ve had – Dunfermline, Partick Thistle, Queen of the South, and then we’ve got a big game at Ayr on Friday.
“We want to rack up as many points as we can and see where we are come the last few games of the season.”
Easton says Hamilton go into the clash under the floodlights with a bit of confidence, and after two defeats and a couple of draws against the Honest Men this season, he’s eager to record a good win.
He added: “We know it’s going to be a tough game again on Friday night, but we feel that we owe them one, definitely.
“If we win the next one, and look at results round about us, we’ll then have a more realistic expectation of what we can achieve – but we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”