Saturday 16th March, 2013 at 9:33pm
It was a naturally happy Alan Archibald that [link:HOME] spoke to after this afternoon’s fine 2-0 win over Hamilton Accies.
Said Alan;
“I’ve not won here for a long, long time. We’ve certainly not won here in the last few seasons. It’s a very difficult place to come. Morton found that out last week and we’ve found that out already this season. So to come here and win 2-0 and keep a clean sheet is just fantastic.”
Alan was clearly delighted with the effort and application shown by his players.
“Hamilton had a wee spell in the second half and the players were throwing themselves in front of the ball to make blocks; not just the defenders but right through the team. Sean Welsh made a fantastic block while it was still 1-0. Every single one is a credit to themselves and to the Club.”
With snow and sleet falling heavily on an already saturated pitch Alan admitted that he was concerned about whether the game would last the full 90 minutes.
“With the way our luck has been going with the weather I did worry when I went out for the warm up but I think sometimes when you actually get started it’s fine. The snow and the rain went off which helped but the pitch didn’t make for conducive football. We knew that would be the case and I think that Hamilton were probably the better side in the first half even though we maybe had the clearer chances. We scored though at a vital time.”
There seems to be some debate over whether that goal should be credited to Conrad Balatoni.
“There are still debating that in the dressing room. It could be an own goal. Some of the boys are saying that, Conrad’s not though. It’s something that we’ll need to try and clarify with him.”
There was no doubting, however, who scored the second goal; Christie Elliott finding the net with a tremendous curling effort from the corner of the box.
“I think it was going to take something like that to beat Kevin Cuthbert. He had another two fantastic saves against us today. He’s done that every time we’ve played Hamilton. I’m absolutely delighted for Christie. He’s worked ever so hard to get back firstly into the squad and then back into the team. He deserved that today; it was a great, great finish. I thought that he gave the whole team a lift when he came on against Dumbarton last week; it was still just 1-0 when he came on. I think that he took confidence from that and he took that into today’s performance as well.”
Early in the second half there was concern when Aaron Sinclair picked up an injury that initially looked as if it would bring his afternoon to an end. Alan was able to give us a wee update on Aaron’s injury plus a few other knocks.
“I think Aaron is okay. There’s a couple of players with knocks. The players will be in tomorrow ahead of Tuesday’s game with Cowdenbeath and we’ll have a look at them then but I think they should be fine.”
Fingers and being well and truly crossed that Tuesday’s game will go ahead.
“We want the game played definitely. We’ll be keeping our eyes in the weather forecast over the next couple of days.”
