19 March 2021

Hamilton’s Aaron Martin drawing on past experiences in survival fight

19 March 2021

Hamilton defender Aaron Martin is staying “super positive” in their survival battle as he chases the “massively rewarding” feeling of staying up that he has experienced twice before.

The centre-back was part of a Birmingham squad that only just secured their Championship survival in 2013 and played in a Coventry victory over Crawley on the final day of the 2014-2015 season which rescued the Sky Blues’ League One status.

Martin now finds himself in a similar battle, with Accies a point off the bottom of the Scottish Premiership and looking to get out of the danger zone ahead of Saturday’s visit of St Mirren.

“I have been in this position twice before, once at Birmingham and we stayed up, and there was one time at Coventry and we stayed up as well,” the 31-year-old said. “They both came down to the last game of the season.

“The feeling afterwards, knowing you have given absolutely everything and you have got the result that you needed and stayed in the league, is massively rewarding.

“I’m hoping we can get ourselves in the position that we may not need to go down to the last day. That’s what we are pushing for.

“I have been involved in that and been involved in the other side of it, going up automatic as well, so hopefully my experience can help the other boys as we have a super young team.

“The likes of myself and Easty (Brian Easton), if we can keep our performances up then hopefully the other boys can do the same and cement survival.”

The experienced defender added: “You have just got to be positive, you have just got to have a mindset that is super-positive about getting the right result.

“All you can do is go out there and do your best every game. It’s trying not to focus on all the other side of things that may or may not happen.

“You have just got to be 100 per cent focused on getting the result we need and hopefully we can build that into the rest of the team.”

Accies head coach Brian Rice expects to have Scott McMann back after the wing-back missed last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at Livingston through injury.

Rice has “one or two concerns”, but added: “Scott has been consistent all season, I think it has been his best season for us.

“He was a miss last week, no doubt about that, because he gives us an end product in the final third.

“It was a Friday afternoon decision, he hadn’t trained all week and he felt he couldn’t do it. We had three or four players who didn’t train last week or didn’t train until the Friday. We had one player who didn’t train at all because he had family circumstances which we never spoke about.

“We knew it would be a really tough shift, as it always is at Livingston, but we are better prepared this week.”

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