Here’s to you, Mister Robinson: Killie boss sings striker’s praises
HAMILTON ACCIES 0
KILMARNOCK 2
Robinson (60, 70)
You can be sure that Hamilton Accies boss Stuart Taylor will be spending his Sunday planning what he’ll say to his players tomorrow.
The new manager had intended to watch his first match from the stand yesterday, but couldn’t resist spending the last 20 minutes in the dugout.
Accies’ academy director George Cairns, who was taking charge along with coach Guillaume Beuzelin, reckons you can read a lot into Taylor’s appearance trackside.
He said: “If he comes down from the stand, then it probably tells you he’s not happy with what he’s seen.
“It shows you his passion and his commitment. He’s come here and sat in the stand, then thought he was best in the dugout.
“Stuart will be fantastic. He has worked under a lot of brilliant managers and will have knowledge of different things from them.
“He also led Limerick to their highest league finish.”
These are two teams with the same aim – to bounce straight back up after being relegated from the Premiership.
What they can’t do is assume they’ve got the best squad in the division and just have to turn up to collect three points.
There was a touch of that about Kilmarnock’s first-half showing.
They looked like they might take advantage of a shaky start by Accies, but their initial flurry of attacking play faded away as the first half wore on.
Scott Robinson later came up with a brace that sealed victory.
The first was a bullet header in the middle of the penalty box from a Haunstrup cross.
His second came when the ball was worked into the box from the right wing and he took his time to side-step two defenders before firing home.
Robinson’s opener came after the home team’s best spell.
They should have taken the lead when Spence fired a cut-back goalwards but was denied by the legs of goalkeeper Hemming.
Killie were on easy street once they were ahead and the travelling support of nearly 1,400 fans will be satisfied that victory was achieved without their favourites getting out of second gear.
Killie boss Tommy Wright was pleased with Robinson’s first league start.
He said: “His movement is good and he’s a natural finisher.
“We had to be careful with him because of his injury. He hadn’t played a lot of football after the end of February and he probably did a bit too much on his own during the summer.
“We’ve had to be patient with getting him up to speed.
“Although he’s not the biggest, he does cause centre-halves problems. He’s an intelligent footballer and I’ve always admired him.
“The quality of our play was pretty good throughout, apart from the start of the second half.
“The sign of a good team is that we got our rhythm back again.”
Killie are leading the Championship table after three games but Wright refuses to accept they will come to be seen as the team to beat.
He said: “You can talk about pressure, we won’t. We just go out and try to play the best we can.
“We’re aware that opposition sides will see us as the big team in the league. There will be a lot of noise – we just have to ignore that.”
Wright is too long in the tooth to start talking about titles with only three down and 33 to go.
You know, however, the noise he ultimately wants to hear is the fans acclaiming Killie as champions.
Right now, they look more likely than Accies to be hearing those cheers.