Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin watched his side thump Inverness Caley 3-0 this afternoon and insists he’s not looking at the Championship table or other results.
Lucas De Bolle’s first professional goal, Jean-Pierre Tiehi’s fourth strike of the season and a Connor Smith penalty gave the New Douglas Park side a resounding win in the Highlands, that moved them to within a point of ninth-placed Arbroath, who drew 1-1 at Cove Rangers.
That’s with a game in hand, as Inverness travel down to Hamilton on Tuesday, but Rankin says he’s ordered his players to focus solely on what they do.
He said: “I’m not interested in any other team in the league, I’m only interested in us.
“I haven’t even looked at the [Cove v Arbroath] result, and I’m not going to.
“We can only take care of our own business.”
While delighted with the win in Inverness, Rankin says Accies had to weather a storm and goals came at the right times for his side.
De Bolle got Accies off the mark two minutes into the second half, on-loan Fulham striker Tiehi netted with 10 minutes to go, and Hearts loanee Smith fired a penalty into the top corner with three minutes left, after Scott Martin had been tripped inside the box.
Rankin said: “It was 3-0, but it certainly wasn’t that if you were at the game.
“We didn’t start the game too well.
“Inverness hit the post within the first 10 minutes, we were under a good bit of pressure but managed to stay in the game.
“In previous games we would probably have found ourselves down and out the game.
“But this group has a bit of character, there’s a different mentality.
“We dug in and got through the difficult part of the game.
“Our goal came at the right time, and after that Fults [goalkeeper Ryan Fulton] makes an unbelievable save.”
Rankin added: “I wasn’t happy with the first-half performance in general – I thought we were lacklustre, lacked energy, looked quite lethargic.
“We had a wee nip at half-time when the players agreed that the standard wasn’t there, and they managed to put it right in the second half.
“Lucas’ goal, the energy to get forward and hit the rebound from JP causing problems, and the second was a really good goal.
“JP makes good movement, Dylan Stephenson picks him out in the box, and then the penalty at the end make the scoreline a wee bit sweeter.
“I’m absolutely delighted for the players. They work so hard for me day in, day out and they deserve a wee bit of plaudits.
“It has been hard for them for the majority of this season, they’ve taken a lot of criticism, but after performances like those they deserve massive amounts of credit.”
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