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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Euan Robertson

Rangers draw is history so we need to kick on, says Hamilton Accies boss Brian Rice

Brian Rice has urged his players to forget about drawing with Rangers and to focus on playing Livingston on Wednesday night.

Hamilton Accies were outstanding against Rangers on Sunday and deserved at least a point which arrived through Ross Callachan's late equaliser.

Although Rice was proud of his players' performance, he demanded that they don't become complacent as they enter a busy run of fixtures in their battle to avoid relegation.

(SNS Group)

He warned: "I hope the players have their feet back on the ground. We got a pat on the back from a lot of people but that's history now.

"Whenever you get a decent performance against the Old Firm, you sometimes let your head wander a wee bit. I need to make sure that doesn't happen and we are back down to earth, still working.

"We will need to be focused tomorrow night because it's a completely different game to Sunday.

"The opponents play a completely different way so everything is different from Sunday. As far as I'm concerned, Sunday is history now."

(SNS Group)

Rice has been reiterating that message to his players in training this week as the focus quickly shifts to tomorrow night.

He said: "I'm probably a wee bit more vocal in training and getting on their backs a bit more.

"The focus is my main concern because it's easy to get up for the games against the Old Firm. You know you'll be under the spotlight and there will be lots of media attention.

"When you do well some players take that and become too big for their boots for a few days. That's the last thing we need, we need everyone to get their overalls on and to get back to work."

Hamilton travel to West Lothian tomorrow to face a Livingston side fresh from their first defeat in 14 games at the weekend against St Johnstone.

David Martindale and his players have justifiably earned rave reviews for their remarkable run of form and Rice is under no illusions about the difficultly of the fixture.

(SNS Group)

He said: " I expect Livingston to be the normal Livingston. High energy, good quality, a goal threat and they'll go for ninety minutes plus.

"You don't expect anything else from Livingston or Davey. He's like that himself and it typifies his team and the way they go about things.

"I'm not {reading anything into their weekend defeat}. The run they've been on is incredible and I've been to a good few of their games. Before the weekend, I think they played two games against Aberdeen and two against Celtic plus the semi-final of the cup.

"They've been on a fantastic run but that's history and we are looking forward to Wednesday night."

Hamilton celebrate their win over Livingston on September 12 (Paul Devlin/SNS Group)

Accies recorded an excellent win on their last visit to face Livingston in September. They battled back from a goal win to deal a dramatic late win courtesy of Kyle Munro's late header.

However, Livingston were dominant in the return fixture winning 2-0 and Rice revealed just how disappointed he was with that performance.

He said: "The game at home, Livingston dominated the game and deserved to win.

"We were completely flat on the night and it's the most disappointed I've been because I thought the team was ready to take off a bit.

"That was a really disappointing night for us so I'm hoping to address that situation.

"It was a great result at Livingston. Every time you get a result at Livingston, you've played well and defended well."

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