Boyd downs Accies as Killie make it six wins in a row

Hamilton Accies 1 Fasan (og, 73) Kilmarnock 2 Broadfoot (63), K. Boyd (79)

The evergreen Kris Boyd notched his 21st goal of the season to give Scotland’s form team a sixth successive league win and extend their unbeaten Premiership record to 11 games.

They’re now just four points away from Hibs in fifth place with fives games remaining but manager Steve Clarke was quick to play down talk about claiming a Europa League slot.

“I don’t think you can get too far ahead of yourself,” he said.

“It’s also a little bit disrespectful to Motherwell because they’ve just reached the Scottish Cup final.

“If they win it, which they can do, then it doesn’t come down to fourth place in the league.

“For us, the first objective was to avoid relegation, the second was to reach top six and we’ve done that.

“The next objective is to secure fifth and we have a gap on Hearts. We have to make sure as quickly as possible after the split we make that gap insurmountable and then, if we have a chance to be fourth, we’ll think about that.” Kilmarnock played most of the football during a scrappy first half but it was the home side who created the better chances.

The Ayrshire outfit, who brought an impressive travelling support, were dragged down to Hamilton’s level as the match became more of a battle than a test of skills.

Boyd and Youssouf Mulumbu weren’t too far away with efforts from distance while Aaron Simpson, starting at right-back in place of the injured Stephen O’donnell, headed meekly at Gary Woods following the best move of the opening period. Xavier Tomas and Georgios Sarris were both booked for professional fouls, on Greg Kiltie and Jordan Jones respectively, before Accies burst into life just before the interval.

First of all, Darian Mackinnon cracked a shot from the edge of the penalty area against the crossbar.

Then Rakish Bingham tested debutant Leo Fasan with a dipping 20-yarder and the former Celt produced an even better save, diving to his left to push away a venomous shot from Lewis Ferguson.

Unfortunately, that didn’t lead to an action-packed second period.

In fact, it was almost a carbon copy of the previous, with Killie making the most of the running, although this time they managed to break the deadlock.

Unsurprisingly, it came from a set play, with former Rangers and Scotland centre-half Kirk Broadfoot stooping to head home a corner from Jones.

Accies looked as though they had snatched a draw when David Templeton helped them draw level two minutes after he and Antonio Rojano had replaced Crawford and Sarris.

His free-kick from 25 yards came back off the post, struck Fasan on the arm and trundled over the line.

However, Killie got the victory their attacking play merited when Simpson’s driven cross was fired behind Woods by – who else? – top scorer Boyd, who celebrated as though he’d just notched the winner in a cup final.

For Accies manager Martin Canning, it was déjà vu all over again as avoidable errors cost his side dearly.

“There was nothing in the game, just like down at Rugby Park. We lost the first goal from a set piece which Kilmarnock did to Partick last week and we spoke about it to the players. “Kilmarnock are such a strange team. They have done great but there is never much in the games with us and the ones I’ve seen but they have that belief.”