St Mirren 0 Accies 1: 26 December 2004

Bell's Scottish Football League Division 1

St Mirren Park, Paisley, 26 December 2004

Report by Gilbert Mowat

I haven't looked up the record books, but it must be quite a few years since Accies last recorded three consecutive victories in the First Division. That they did so in this game was due to another fine team performance, with the recently developed defensive formation working well yet again. The switch of Sandy Hodge to the middle of the defence alongside Steven Thomson and the full back pairing of Iain Fyfe and Mark McLaughlin has been the foundation for the recent upturn in Accies' fortunes. The midfield has been stiffened up too, with big Pat Keogh and Derek Ferguson providing Mark Corcoran with the space on the left wing to torment opposing defences.

Allan Maitland named exactly the same side that had defeated Partick Thistle 8 days before, which meant that Brian Carrigan had to be content with a place on the bench. St Mirren appeared to be at full strength, with former Accies man Allan Russell as a substitute.

Accies were the better of the two sides in the first half, with Mark Corcoran turning in yet another impressive performance on the left wing. Sadly, his poor luck in front of goal continued and despite a couple of good efforts, Mark was unable to beat Craig Hinchcliffe in the Saints goal. Scott Tunbridge and Steven Thomson also had good headed attempts on goal but were unable to break the deadlock. Saints had a quiet first half, with Dave McEwan largely untroubled by their efforts. Naturally, the home sides main tactic was to pump the ball into the sky in the general direction of Mixu Paatelainen. The chunky Finnish player has caused Accies huge amounts of grief over the last couple of seasons, but he was unable to get any change out of the Accies defence in this game. He made a pathetic penalty claim just before the break, when he was nearly flattened by Mark McLaughlin's leap to head clear, but it was never a foul.

Interestingly, veteran midfielder (and former Accie) Andy Millen took great offence at McLaughlin for this and we had all his normal finger pointing arrogance to suffer as the teams left the field at the interval. An annoying feature of the first half was the number of fouls that referee John Rowbotham awarded against Accies in dangerous positions. It just seemed that the Saints players were keen to collapse to the turf at every opportunity. One of these fouls was a wild swipe by David Hamilton that connected audibly with big Mixu's shinguard - the Accies man was rightly booked for the offence. Anyway, St Mirren made nothing of their chances and the teams were level at the break.

If the first half had been good for Accies, the home team certainly took control after the break. But they were still having difficulty in penetrating the Accies defence, so their manager Gus McPherson made the bold move to make two changes just before the hour, with Ricky Gillies and Simon Lappin being replaced. Accies made an early change too, with the lacklustre David Hamilton being withdrawn in favour of Brian Carrigan. (I am not sure why Carrots isn't starting games at the moment - I would always have him in the starting X1 if possible.)

With Carrots available to hold the ball up, Accies' counter attacks started to carry more of a threat and Accies duly scored the only goal of the game shortly afterwards. The move started with Carrots in midfield and he threaded a good ball to Pat Keogh at the edge of the area. He neatly sidestepped a lunging defender and gave the ball to Scott Tunbridge. Pat ran on to the right and Scott slipped the ball back to him. Big Paddy cut in on the right and fired the ball low across the face of the goal where it was beautifully thumped home by Saints defender David van Zanten. In his defence, the Saints man had to play the ball, as there was an Accies player ready to pounce at the far post. Pat Keogh led the celebrations and it was just a pity that the big guy didn't get the goal. His time will come very soon.

Unfortunately, much of the remainder of the game was played up at the far end, with the Accies defence repelling waves of St Mirren attacks. Allan Russell was brought on as Gus McPherson made his last change. The home side won what felt like umpteen corners but the defence really did their job, with shots being blocked and headers being won. But they kept giving away free kicks in dangerous positions and one near the end was superbly touched onto the post by Dave McEwan as the home fans started to celebrate the goal. McEwan made a couple of other fine saves, with one from a header being out of this world.

I would expect that many of the home fans would think that they got less from the game than they deserved and it has to be said that Accies got their fair share of good luck in this game. Given that Accies were very unlucky to lose at Paisley earlier in the season and absolutely robbed when the teams drew at NDP, there can be no apology for this.

Apparently the home officials reacted very badly to this result. Oh dear, what a pity!

St Mirren: Hinchcliffe, van Zanten, Millen, Dempsie, Broadfoot, Gillies (McGinty 56), Reilly (Russell 71), McCay, Lappin (Crilly 56), Paatelainen, Kean. Subs Not Used: O'Neil, Woods.

Hamilton: McEwan, Fyfe, Thomson, McLaughlin, Hodge, Hamilton (Carrigan 63), Ferguson, Tunbridge, Corcoran (Aitken 89), Keogh, McPhee (Carney 83). Subs Not Used: Lumsden, Jellema.

Booked: Hamilton, Ferguson, Keogh. Goal: van Zanten 69 og.

Att: 2,888

Ref: J Rowbotham

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