New Douglas Park, Hamilton, Wednesday 26 September 2001
Accies manager Ally Dawson made a couple of changes after the weekend's defeat at Recreation Park. Michael Martin replaced the injured Eddie Cunnington at left back, while Johnny Walker came in for Allan Russell in midfield. Ally Graham made a return to the right side of midfield.
Accies started the game very strongly and were unlucky not to take the lead in the opening minute. Stuart Callaghan swung over a terrific corner from the right and Paul Gaughan's close range header struck the bar with Jamie Langfield helpless. A couple of minutes later, Gareth Armstrong was unlucky to see his well struck shot parried by Langfield.
Accies were really fired up for the game and were unlucky not to score when Ally Graham did well to beat the offside trap before firing in a low cross that was diverted out for a corner kick.
Dundee made a few forays into the Accies penalty area as well, but didn't really trouble Graham Potter and his defence in the first half.
HALF TIME
Accies don't seem to have sorted out decent half-time entertainment or information for the fans yet. Apart from telling us the winner of the 50/50 draw, there was no news on other matches taking place or any other Accies news for that matter. Plus their obsession with Kylie Minogue is still there. What happened to the Jimmy Shand type stuff they used to play at Douglas Park? Now THERE was music!
Incidentally, the Sun's photographer was using his Apple Mac laptop to send his digital pictures back to base during the half time break - very impressive.
SECOND HALF
The second half pretty much picked up where the first half left off. Accies had an awful lot of the ball but had to be on their toes whenever the opposition got possession. In fact, Dundee were unlucky not to open the scoring just after half time when a superb cross from the right gave one of their strikers a simple chance. Happily for Accies, his header went wide.
Despite their territorial advantage, however, Accies never really looked like scoring and they were to learn a painful lesson from Dundee just after the hour. One of their midfield men lofted a great ball into the inside left channel for Steven Milne and he prodded it past Graham Potter.
Immediately, all of the Accies fans realised that their team had no real chance of getting back into the game and the visitors were to double their lead 11 minutes later. Similar to the goal conceded at Stenhousemuir recently, this goal was the result of a breakaway after an Accies attack floundered. this time it was diminutive substitute Colin Boylan who did the needful from about 10 yards.
Naturally, this was the cue for loads of the Accies supporters to leave and it was hard to blame them. Their team had seen plenty of the ball and were entitled to full marks for effort.
But the better team won.
CONCLUSION
Another Accies performance full of effort but short on skill. Dundee won without really having to work too hard and that will be a disappointing lesson for Ally Dawson's men. The good news is that Morton are unlikely to be as accomplished as Dundee when they visit New Douglas Park on Saturday.
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