First Team
Saints 1-0 Hamilton Accies
28th March 2018
Wednesday 28th March
Saints moved up to 7th place in the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership this evening with a 1-0 win against Hamilton Accies at McDiarmid Park.
The only goal of the game came after 5 minutes when Accies' Scott McMann diverted Liam Craig's header into his own net from a Blair Alston corner.
MATCH REPORT
Saints coming off a good run of results faced a Hamilton at McDiarmid Park this evening. Tommy Wright made 2 changes to the side who faced Hibs last time out, bringing in George Williams and Jason Kerr, after he served his match ban for his sending off against Kilmarnock, for Chris Millar and Liam Gordon.
Hamilton got the game underway however, it was Saints who started the better of the two sides. In just the 5th minute of play Saints instant pressure paid off, a corner whipped in from Blair Alston skimmed over Liam Craig’s head and Accies defender Scott McCann the Accies bundled the ball past his own keeper and put the Perth men ahead.
Saints continued their good start to the match and some great build up play in and around the penalty area found Chris Kane, he floated a ball in to find Steven MacLean but Gary Woods was up early to collect.
Kane was nearly again on the scoresheet, a great free kick from Alston on the right flank found him but his header was just over the bar and it stayed 1-0.
Some great work by Scott Tanser down the left-hand side, he passed Dougie Imrie’s challenge before blazed into the box and played in a delightful ball to find Alston but his shot was blocked by the hearty Hamilton defence.
Saints got the second 45 underway.
On 69 minutes the first proper shot at goal in the second half came for Hamilton from a corner but Darian MacKinnon’s shot from outside the box was straight at a waiting Alan Mannus.
Hamilton piled on the pressure in the closing stages with David Templeton’s shot from outside the box taking a slight deflection and Mannus got a fingertip on it to go out for a corner but the corner came to nothing. Saints put on a great defensive performance in the second half and made sure that all 3 points were staying at home.
After a great attacking performance in the first half and a brilliant defensive display to deny Hamilton of any real goalmouth action in the second half, Saints were the deserving of the two sides and took all 3 points, leap-frogging Motherwell into 7th place in the SPFL table.
Saints: Mannus, Tanser, Alston, Shaughnessy, Anderson, Davidson, MacLean, Williams (Willock 72), Kerr, Kane, Craig
Unused Substitutes: Clark (GK), Millar, Johnstone, McClean, Watson, Gordon
Booked: Davidson
Scorer: McMann (5 OG)
Hamilton Accies: Woods, McMann, Tomas, Imrie, Bingham (Jenkins 45), Templeton, Mackinnon, Lyon, Want, Sarris (Miller 79), Ogkmpoe (Rojano 45)
Unused Substitutes: Fulton (GK), Redmond, Van der Weg, Hughes Booked: Sarris, Want
Referee: Euan Anderson
Attendance: 2,037
Match Report by Hannah Klatschak
Picture: Scott McMann diverts the ball past his own keeper