Thumbs down

Lewis Smith says Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Ross County felt like a defeat after throwing away a 2-1 lead.

The winger cut a dejected figure after the game, and really he should have been bouncing, having scored one and set up another as Accies turned around an early opener for County.

Smith, 19, was pleased with his own performance but said he would have traded that for three points.

“From a personal point of view it was really good to get a goal,” he said. “It had been a while for me, so that was really nice, but at the end of the day you would trade it all in for three points.

“We’re all really disappointed in there. I thought we deserved to win, and it feels like a defeat, to be honest.

“It would have been a massive win for us. We set out to win any game, but this was one we went into knowing that we could get something, and our secondhalf performance showed that. It was just a lack of concentration at the end of the game and it has cost us.”

Hamilton got off to the worst possible start as County opened the scoring inside 40 seconds, breaking up Accies’ kick-off and attacking.

When Lee Erwin’s shot was parried by keeper Owain Fon Williams it was right into the path of Billy Mckay, who gleefully slotted it home.

Hamilton then had plenty of possession but not really much of an end result for the remainder of the half.

The introduction of veteran striker Steven Davies for Ross Cunningham at half-time changed things for Accies and the Liverpudlian was unlucky not to send an early free kick searing into the bottom left corner from 25 yards.

However, Scott Martin’s raking pass picked out Smith on the right, he cut inside past Ricky Foster and smashed a shot high into the net to draw Hamilton level in 52 minutes.

Smith then sent the ball through to George Oakley and he drove it into the bottom left corner in 65 minutes.

County grabbed their leveller in 88 minutes when Michael Gardyne was sent down the left and his cut-back was smashed into the right corner by sub Brian Graham.

Accies were reduced to 10 men in the last minute of stoppage time when Martin motioned his head towards an opponent.

Smith added: “The team performance in the second half was really good, everyone was on it, they were up on second balls and that made it easier for wide players to get it, because we had so much more space. It’s so frustrating that we couldn’t get it over the line.

“There’s nothing else to do except watch it back. We’ll look at our mistakes and learn from them, and hopefully it won’t happen again, but after that you just need to put it behind you, go for the next one and hopefully get three points.

“We can take heart from it ; I feel like we deserved to win, and that shows that we’ve got it in our lockers, just a bit more game-management and experience is all that we need.

“Hopefully we can take that into next week and get the result that we deserved.”