Good grief. This made Jim Duffy and Neil Lennon’s stooshie look like a minor disagreement between Jack and Vera outside the Rovers Return. The Saints became the sinners here at New Douglas Park amid quite flabbergasting and shameful scenes. The way Scottish football is going these days, the matches will soon be accompanied by an under card.
A terrible first half had meandered to an uneventful conclusion and as the teams trudged off the pitch, all hell broke loose. The St Johnstone duo of Richard Foster and Danny Swanson started lashing and thrashing at each other in a violent, boggled-eyed frenzy while a series of skirmishes developed in the mouth of the tunnel. It was all very unedifying and the duelling duo face serious reprimands with Tommy Wright, the St Johnstone manager, promising that the club will “come down on them as hard as we possibly can.”
Foster and Swanson were both sent off in the chaotic aftermath, as was Hamilton coach Guilaume Beuzelin, as St Johnstone played the entire second half with just nine-men. After all the ill-discipline, the visitors were highly disciplined in their defensive approach after the resumption and almost held out for a share of the spoils as Hamilton’s increasingly desperate siege looked like it would go unrewarded. In the last knockings, though, Alex D’Acol, battered in a priceless, 90th minute winner to lift Hamilton off the bottom of the table.
“I’ve never seen anything like this except on television,” added Wright, whose side at least secured a top six spot. “In my day someone hit you in the dressing room and it stayed there. There was frustration from us in first half at not playing well and Danny and Richard had words before that. But I can sort that out in the dressing room but I didn’t get a chance to do that.”
A new month offers the chance of a new start and Hamilton were probably glad to see April birl round on to the calendar. To paraphrase Julius Caesar as he pored over the Scottish fitba’ scene, it had been very much a case of beware the sides of March. During the weeks prior to the international break, the Accies had lost 6-0 and 4-0 to Rangers while suffering another four goal tanking at the hands of Hearts.
The hosts needed something to lift morale and they began sprightly enough here as Greg Docherty thumped in a drive from the edge of the box which Alan Mannus, the St Johnstone keeper, fisted down in front of him before the lingering menace was cleared.
And that, folks, was really that as a grim spectacle, featuring all the creative nous of a hand-cranked mangle, unfolded. At least the pitch battle at half-time stirred the hitherto numbed senses. For all the wrong reasons, of course.
Faced with this crippling, numerical disadvantage, St Johnstone had their backs against the wall but two sturdy lines of four produced a solid defensive redoubt which Hamilton struggled to penetrate.
Grant Gillespie forced Mannus into a leaping save, while Dougie Imrie blootered one over from close range and Ioannis Skondras shanked a golden opportunity wide of the mark. Mannus produced another fine stop from Ali Crawford on 86 minutes but D’Acol popped up right at the death to plunder the points on an astonishing afternoon.
“Myself and Boozy (Beuzelin) both said to the referee that is two red cards because it was a fight on the pitch and their players have taken exception to that and it turned into a big mess,” added Martin Canning, the Hamilton manager, of the half-time tumult. “It’s not what you want to see. We shouldn’t be seeing that on the pitch. For us, it’s a huge three points. I didn’t think the goal was going to come but we kept going.”
You could say they delivered a knock-out blow.
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