Brian Rice bemoans lack of Hamilton ‘fight’

“Raging” Hamilton head coach Brian Rice accused his players of lacking fight and letting their fans down following a 3-0 Lanarkshire derby defeat by Motherwell at Fir Park.

Accies were torn apart in the first half as David Turnbull’s double and a Jake Hastie strike wrapped up the points inside 37 minutes.

Hamilton had gone into the game buoyed by a victory at Aberdeen in their previous Ladbrokes Premiership encounter but they were trailing with little over two minutes on the clock as an unmarked Turnbull netted from close range.

Rice said: “We shot ourselves in the foot. It’s a local derby, I said to the players to start on the front foot, headers, tackles, second balls, stop crosses, defend crosses. We know how Motherwell play, we have watched them, done our work on them, and it totally went out the window in the first 30 minutes. That’s when we lost the game.

“There wasn’t enough fight, not enough spirit. I said at half-time, you have beaten yourselves, you need to go out there and prove to the fans that you deserve to wear that strip.

“I feel for the fans and I am raging the way we approached the first half. Certain players were asked to do jobs and they weren’t up to it.

“Why did we let the fans down so badly? You have to win tackles and headers and the goals we lost are embarrassing. We worked on how to defend all week and then the game starts and it goes out the window.

“We got better in the second half but I’m not interested in that.”

While teenagers Turnbull and Hastie again grabbed the goals – they have netted 10 between them in 2019 – Gboly Ariyibi arguably outperformed everyone in a devastating first-half display.

The on-loan Nottingham Forest winger produced an exhibition of pace and trickery and set up Turnbull’s first before winning the penalty that the midfielder stroked home in the 11th minute.

Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson said: “If we get a full 90 minutes out of him that would be brilliant. But he could be a very good footballer.

“He’s learning all the time and is giving us that element of attacking threat, pace and energy.

“Jake on the other side and Elliott (Frear) when he came on give us that too. We’ve got the outlet now if we can the ball out to them as we did in the first half.

“Could he play at a far higher level? Yeah, if he does it on a consistent basis and he gets fitter and more understanding of the game.

“He’s a very talented boy, we knew that when we brought him in. He’s had other loan spells that haven’t quite worked out.

“We got him in and put an arm around him and he’s showing with a wee bit love and affection he can be a very good player. And a wee bit of screaming at him too…”