Woods’ wonder show spoiled by a slip that was so hard to handle

THERE is no good way for a keeper to concede four goals — but Hamilton’s Gary Woods found a new variety of pain in his side’s comprehensive defeat at Tynecastle yesterday.

Having produced as good a shot-stopping display as you are ever likely to see in the opening 45 minutes, the former Manchester United trainee was beaten by Arnaud Djoum’s point-blank effort in first-half stoppagetime.

There then unfolded a troubled second half in which he suffered the rare fate of being punished for handling a passback.

The goalkeeper protested referee Craig Thomson’s decision to no avail as Ismael Goncalves lashed home the second goal.

‘I thought I heard the referee blow his whistle — the game just sort of stopped,’ said Woods afterwards.

‘The ball has been passed back to me and everyone stopped, so I picked it up.

‘I don’t think the referee was going to give it until the players got around him.

‘Those situations rarely happen in the game, so it’s disappointing.

‘If the referee has not blown his whistle, then I will have to put my hand up.

‘That’s the life of a goalkeeper — you have hundreds of saves first half and then something like that happens.’

Woods might also have done better as Malaury Martin claimed Hearts’ fourth, but that was academic.

Accies manager Martin Canning mounted a firm defence of his keeper but was less generous to the players deployed in front of him.

He said: ‘We lost the first goal at a key moment but their second was bizarre. I heard a whistle from the crowd and we all stopped.

‘Woodsy thought it was a free-kick and went to roll the ball back to them — but it wasn’t the referee’s whistle that’s gone.

‘With the way our luck’s going at the moment, they stuck it in the top corner of the net.’

With Inverness claiming a late equaliser at Partick Thistle, Hamilton ended the day just a point off the bottom of the Premiership table.

‘We didn’t play well, it was our poorest performance of the season,’ added Canning.

‘We’re not creating chances and we have to do a lot better up the park. Our two strikers aren’t doing enough to keep possession and get us out.

‘Defensively, we did reasonably well but in the middle of the park we lost the individual battles.

‘I’m disappointed because that performance isn’t what I expect from us.

‘It’s very rare that I feel that way. I can accept losing games but I can’t accept losing them in that manner.’