Horrible end to term for Accies
INVERNESS CALEY THISTLE ............... 4 HAMILTON ACCIES ............................... 0
Hamilton head coach Stuart Taylor says his side fell well short of rewarding their loyal fans for travelling to Inverness after his side suffered a “horrible”4-0 thrashing.
Accies were stunned with Billy Dodds’ promotion-chasing hosts storming to victory in their final Championship game of the season.
Tom Walsh grabbed a double while Shane Sutherland and Joe Hardy added insult to injury, with all the goals coming inside the first 28 minutes.
Morton’s loss to Arbroath means the New Douglas Park side’s first term back in the second tier following Premiership relegation ends in a bottom half finish of sixth.
It was far from an ideal way to end the campaign for Taylor, who was heartened by a loud away support that followed his side up the A9 last Friday night.
But what was handed back to them in return for their efforts has stung him.
He said: “It’s a horrible night for us and one I never saw coming. It was a night that we had a terrible start in and never recovered from it.
“The goals near enough killed the game inside 30 minutes and left us needing an almighty comeback.
“It’s disappointing, especially when we had a good turnout from the supporters who were vocal and gave us a good backing. We thank them for that, and for the season. We’d love to have given them more.
“It makes it massively worse as you want to make your supporters proud. You always want to put in a good performance.
“The only positive for the night was the highest we could finish is sixth, and we did that.”
Accies were toiling with injury problems prior to the match and Taylor admits a couple of his players shouldn’t even have tied their laces for battle at the Caledonian Stadium.
While still shocked by the way his side started the game, the 47-year-old says his team at least stopped the rot and kept scoring to a minimum afterwards.
He added: “We asked the lads for a reaction and for them to fight, run and compete. We did see a reaction but it’s massively disappointing.
“I am not giving excuses but one or two players shouldn’t have been out on the pitch as they weren’t fit enough. We asked them to go again and turn up. They did that.”
Accies skipper Brian Easton, who started the match on the bench but came on after 29 minutes at 4-0 down to shore up the defence, was furious with the display and said sorry to the fans who made the trip north.
“You don’t want to come on at 4-0 but I was itching to get on with the way things were going. The goals we lose are really cheap,” said the 34-year-old.
“We need to apologise to the fans who have made the journey up to this one. It’s not the way we want to end our season.
“We wouldn’t want to play like that in a pre-season friendly. We are all competitors. We want to win games and we don’t want to be having nights like this. It will stick around in the back of the mind for longer than you want heading into our summer.
“We have been getting stronger and doing things right more and more every week.
“So it is a killer this has happened right at the end of the season.”