Accies strike late to enjoy some

DOUGIE IMRIE’S winner gave Hamilton just their second home league victory in 16 games and boss Martin Canning hopes this early-season win in front of their own fans will ease the pressure.

Canning has often had their dismal run on their own patch cast up to him but he now hopes that can be a thing of the past.

He pointed to the quality of players like Massimo Donati, Greg Docherty and Daria MacKinnon as reasons to be optimistic.

Canning said: “I thought we deserved to win. It’s important to pick up three points, especially at home. It’s great for our belief. We now need to kick on from this.

“Our players put everything into the game. It’s great to see guys such as Dougie being rewarded.

“Greg and Darian were phenomenal and in behind them Massimo is a class act. He reads the game so well.”

The first 45 minutes was as close to a nonevent as you could have imagined. It lacked quality and rhythm.

Yet, it could have got off to a fine start with a goal inside the opening 60 seconds but Andrew Davies headed back off the crossbar from a County corner kick.

Accies had enough possession in the final third but they dithered and failed to penetrate Scott Fox’s goal.

Thankfully, there was much more entertainment after the interval. And the attacking threat came mostly from the home team.

Donati pulled the strings in the middle of the park and he had willing runners off him in Imrie, MacKinnon and Docherty.

Docherty and Alex D’Acol troubled Fox and then Accies sub Danny Redmond pounced on a short passback from Paul Quinn but his lob was just a yard wide.

Eamonn Brophy – another sub for the home team – then forced Fox