Teenager will learn from latest red, says Easton

HAMILTON captain Brian Easton has placed a protective arm around Jamie Hamilton and told the 18-year-old he doesn’t owe any apologies after the fourth red card of his short career. Accies were the better side in the opening stages of Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Hibs before the match changed on Hamilton’s 12th-minute dismissal. The youngster flew into a challenge on Martin Boyle, but Accies boss Brian Rice claimed referee Craig Napier was initially going to show only a yellow card. A sending-off was confirmed after Napier consulted assistant Graeme Stewart.

With three red cards last season — albeit one was overturned on appeal — Hamilton now has a quartet of dismissals from just 25 Premiership starts. ‘He probably won’t be too happy with the stat,’ said Easton. ‘But when you look at all the sending-offs he’s had, they are all quite different. ‘We won’t hold it against him. He is still young, but he is such a good player, you actually forget how young he is. ‘He’s much older mentally and technically than his actual age. He’s still learning and will be for a while. Maybe he can look back at where he can do better positionally. ‘But that’s the way we do things here. We learn from our mistakes and we are all in this together here. ‘He was very disappointed. I’ve been sent off and it doesn’t matter if you are 18 or 31 or whatever, you still feel guilty. ‘He doesn’t need to apologise to anyone. He just needs to get the head up and get on with it. We have a lot of big games coming up.’ The defeat ended a three-match unbeaten run for Accies, but Easton took heart from how they continued to compete with ten men. ‘This is a hard place to come and Hibs have got really good attacking players,’ he added. ‘There were times we were man-for-man at the back and, even though it was 2-0, the boys really showed spirit and character to stay in it. ‘We came close to getting a goal back but once they scored a second it killed us off. ‘We won’t be too hard on ourselves. You just look at the character and the effort the boys put into the game and we can take a lot out of that as well.’