22 April 2021

Brian Easton confident Hamilton will not let heads drop despite double blow

22 April 2021

Hamilton skipper Brian Easton has no doubts his team will be up for the fight and will not let their heads drop after their survival battle became even tougher.

Accies suffered a 1-0 home defeat by Motherwell on Wednesday after Ronan Hughes was sent off, and later saw nearest rivals Kilmarnock sweep aside Dundee United.

Ross County were also leading St Mirren but the Paisley side’s comeback ensured the gap at the bottom between the Dingwall side and Accies is three points with a four-goal advantage for the Lanarkshire outfit.

Brian Rice’s men next face St Mirren away on May 1 before facing County and Killie in their final two matches of the Scottish Premiership season.

Easton is adamant they can catch the two teams above them.

“If you have been involved in Hamilton, you don’t ever lose that sort of belief,” the defender said. “It just means it’s three wins out of three that we need, basically. There’s no other way of looking at it.

“We need to win the rest of our games, which we are capable of doing, but it’s going to be difficult. A win would have made it less of a mountain to climb but we have still to play them both.

“We just need to make sure we pick ourselves up. That’s one thing I know about this team, boys won’t stop fighting. We will give everything we have got and hopefully we can manage to do that.

“It’s been a tough season but you never see boys walking about with their heads down, it’s always sleeves rolled up, head forward and get on with the next game.

“We took a drubbing off Rangers and I have played with teams where the confidence might have gone right downhill. But it wasn’t, it was ‘we need to be better, let’s go again’.

“I’m not worried what the character or the spirit is going to be like, we are going to be ready for these last few games.

“We will be going into the St Mirren game ready to go and ready to fight.”

One positive against Motherwell was the return off the bench of attacking players Nathan Thomas and Lewis Smith, the latter of whom has been out since August.

“One of the things the gaffer always says is ‘no excuses’ and I totally buy into that,” Easton said. “When you look at the injuries we have had, you would love to have these boys back.

“And they are great lads as well, Smithy has been working so hard to get back and it’s great to see him back. Getting players like him and Nathan Thomas back will hopefully give us a spark and they can play a big part.”

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