Hamilton boss Brian Rice admitted some of his players ‘went into their shells’ after St Mirren scored the winner in Saturday’s basement battle.
The frustrated Accies head coach says the quality must improve, but insists his side have the character needed to claw their way out of relegation trouble.
As it was, Cammy MacPherson’s 52nd-minute strike was enough to separate the sides.
It was a game that neither side could really afford to lose, but Saints came out in the second half and dominated, and looked the more likely to score.
The Paisley side struck the goal-frame three times during the game and forced some good saves from keeper Luke Southwood, while Accies had their only effort on target through a David Moyo header in 84 minutes.
To compound matters, Alex Gogic was shown a straight red card for hauling down striker Cody Cooke in 76 minutes, Hamilton’s sixth dismissal in 17 games.
For a side that is going to be fighting relegation – and most likely against St Mirren as the chief challengers – it wasn’t good enough, and Rice pulled no punches after the game.
“We need to show a bit of character to get out of this,” he said, “but the one thing the boys have is character, enthusiasm and endeavour, so that’s not in question – we just need to work on the quality.
“Two or three of them go into their shell a wee bit when we lose a goal, and instead of trying to pass it they start to just launch it.
“That’s not what we work on, and they know that, but that’s just being a wee bit mentally weak. They need to be mentally stronger, and keep doing what is working.
“It was a big game for us, a big game for St Mirren as well. We need to identify what went wrong, where we need to improve.
“The boys are disappointed because they’ve been to Livingston last week and kept a clean sheet by working really hard, went to Parkhead the other night and defended with their lives, but we didn’t defend with our lives on Saturday and that’s a mind-set thing.
“Every game should be the same, you’ve got to approach it the same, and I felt we didn’t do that in the second half.”
Accies go into Saturday’s clash against Aberdeen at Pittodrie minus the services of influential Gogic, who has been outstanding this season.
Rice points out that they went up to the Granite City last season and got an unexpected win, and is urging his side to replicate that.
“What I’m saying to the players is to go and win the next game. It’s like everything else, go and win the next game – it’s as simple as that.”
And he added: “Aberdeen is always a difficult place to go, but we went there last season and won, after getting beat by Rangers.
“We need to pick ourselves up, keep working hard, working on our final third, on our quality into the box, and keeping the back door closed.
“They got a good result in midweek against Rangers, they got beat on Saturday, and that’s just the nature of football – it’s on the day.”
