Saints cruise home as early error costs Accies
After three weeks in the planning, Martin Canning’s tactics had to be canned within the opening 45 seconds at Mcdiarmid Park yesterday after the first in a series of glaring errors from Hamilton keeper Ryan Fulton sent 2014 Cup winners St Johnstone on their way to the next round.
A shrewd operator like Canning would have intended to use the time-honoured approach of keeping things tight and hoping to frustrate the home team and their supporters.
However. Fulton’s blunders scuppered any chance the visitors might have had.
Having handled Liam Craig’s harmless free-kick like a bar of soap, the alert Jason Kerr stepped in to head Saints in front.
Fulton then spilled Ross Callachan’s 26th-minute effort, enabling Tony Watt to hammer home the rebound.
Accies have now lost six of their last seven games and face what has become an annual struggle against the spectre of relegation.
St Johnstone, by contrast, posted their third straight victory and a third clean sheet, too.
Also this victory gave them Accies’ scalp for the third time this season.
“It was the perfect start, really, to score in the first minute,” admitted home manager Tommy Wright.
“That settled everybody down, especially after the three-week winter break.
“We’re pleased enough with the performance.
“However, the result was the main thing today and we’re happy to be safely through to the next round.
“It was a poacher’s finish from Tony Watt, but he can be happy with his overall performance today as well.
“We’ve assembled a decent squad here and we have competition for places all over the pitch.
“It’s been a good week for us and, if we can get another couple of wins, then it’ll be an even better week!”
Canning added: “Those two goalkeeping mistakes have cost us the game.
“There wasn’t much between the two teams in the rest of the match.
“We competed well here, but we conceded two cheap goals and that made it very difficult for us because St Jonstone are a very well-organised and disciplined team.
“We’re a small club, but we’ve competed in the top flight for five years now and we can hopefully make it six.
“This has been the most successful period in our history.
“It’s never going to be easy to compete on our budget.
“We lost six or seven really good players and it’s so difficult to replace them on a small budget.”
When told that his father had been abused by an Accies fan in the crowd, Canning said: “I haven’t spoken to him yet, so that’s news to me.
“I can accept criticism in the dugout, but I can’t accept him getting it if that’s true.
“Some Accies fans are frustrated.
“However, we don’t want to tar all of them with the same brush as a small minority.”