Brian Rice believes Scott McMann has been one of Hamilton's best players this season.
Accies sorely missed the services of McMann on Saturday in the 2-1 defeat against Livingston
The 24 year-old has enjoyed an excellent season and Kyle Munro struggled at left wing-back in his absence.
“Scott’s been absolutely fantastic this season and it was a major blow to lose him,” Rice added on academy graduate McMann.
“He picked up a problem in the Aberdeen game and he never trained that week. We thought that he would train towards the end of the week but he didn’t train till Friday and pulled out.
“It was a massive loss to us considering the players we had missed but to lose, probably, one of our best performers this season was a major blow.
“I don’t know if he will be fit on Saturday or not. He’s not trained so far this week but it’s only Tuesday so I honestly don’t know."
Hamilton’s problems aren’t set to alleviate ahead of the St Mirren clash with the majority of their injured players out long-term.
Rice added: “{David} Templeton, {Shaun} Want, {Nathan} Thomas, {Lewis} Smith and {Andrew} Winter are all out for the season. We don’t know about Marios {Ogkmpoe} but it’s going to be at least four or five weeks.
“It’s unbelievable but that’s just the way it has been recently.”
It’s not uncharted territory for Hamilton to be in a relegation battle at the end of the Premiership season.
They’ve experienced the pressures before and Rice is relying on the same group of players to steer Accies to safety.
The 57 year-old boss said: “We are going to have to use that. It’s the same boys going to the well because we’ve got so many problems with injuries.
“If you look at our bench it’s all young, young kids; Stanger, Mimnaugh, Stirling, Slaven and Redfern.
“It’s very, very difficult to change things at the minute because we don’t have the personnel to do it. We’ve got to rely on the spirit, the team effort and everything else that goes along with that.”
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