With Ben McNicol
Ronan Hughes admits that the Accies players owe the fans progression in the Premier Sports Cup after crashing out in the group stages last season.
Hamilton suffered unexpected defeats to Annan Athletic and Stranraer in last year's competition, but a win against Ayr United at New Douglas Park this evening would put Accies in an extremely strong position to qualify.
The 22-year scored the equaliser from the penalty spot in Saturday’s important win against Falkirk.
Hughes says that he's never felt so confident in himself and believes there’s a positive feeling within the camp following the positive start to the season.
He said: “We’ve given ourselves a really good chance of progression and hopefully we can win against Ayr United and take one step closer to the next round.
"We owe it to Brian {Rice} and the fans because we know that the last few years in this competition haven’t been good enough.
“I believe in myself a lot more this season as last year I was sometimes up and then sometimes down, but injuries had a part to play in that.
"The things that the Gaffer, Beuzy and George Cairns have said to me fills me with a lot of confidence.
“I was given responsibility on Saturday for the penalty and I’m glad to have repaid the faith put in me. I would back myself 9 out of 10 times to put them away.”
There are a whole array of different options in the midfield for Accies this season, from the likes of Regan Mimnaugh, the newly-recruited Lewis Spence, Scott Martin, David Templeton - who’ve still to come back from injury - and Hakeem Odoffin.
Hughes insists that competition for places is healthy for Hamilton and he's relishing the challenge.
"I think everyone would say that this is only a good thing as it'll help bring the best out of us as we're all competing against each other for places.
"We already know that with the formation we are currently playing that only 3 of us can play so it means we need to be at it every single day in training."
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