SIR Tim Rice, the famed theatre lyricist, was seated in the West Stand. The unexpected appearance by the holidaying celebrity invited all manner of musical references as Ross County took centre stage.
The Chess and Evita composer may or may not be a connoisseur of Scottish football but, if he held any interest at all in proceedings, he must have been impressed by how the greatly-revamped host team stamped authority on the match.
For a squad featuring 10 new faces, County’s tuned-in ensemble were impressively coherent and organised in their intent.
Still, it took a huge break early in the match to swing events in their favour. Both managers admitted an early penalty award against home goalkeeper Scott Fox for clicking Christian Nade’s heels was a pivotal point, with Ali Crawford’s effort saved.
“The penalty miss was huge,” Martin Canning, the Hamilton manager, said. “If you look back at the game, if that goes in we’d probably have won the match.”
With the Kaiser Chiefs headlining at the nearby Belladrum festival, it was Accies who sounded the flat notes thereafter.
They enjoyed a large share of play without looking seriously capable of breaking their scoring duck for the season.
The home side, much overhauled in the summer, had been happy enough with their opening-day performance despite a defeat at Celtic Park but this amounted to a more serious measure of their readiness to improve on last season’s relegation close call.
In a shaky start for County, though, there was a powerful sense of deja vu from the Celtic match as the Dingwall team again conceded a penalty in the third minute.
Leigh Griffiths had tucked his away but this time Fox reacted superbly to save Crawford’s strike to his left.
That costly missed opportunity doubled in significance inside 10 minutes as the home breakthrough materialised.
Craig Curran won a corner with determined play on the left, his strike blocked by the head of Lucas Tagliapietra. From Raffaele DeVita’s delivery, Jackson Irvine’s header flew to Liverpudlian Curran and he swiped in a close-range volley with minimum fuss.
From there, the complexion of the match changed greatly, County dictating and pressing Accies steadily and drawing a series of niggling fouls from the visiting side.
Tagliapietra was among the main culprits and took a booking for his troubles after 23 minutes, but it was the giant defender himself who crashed to earth soon after with a head injury sustained in a clash with Liam Boyce.
It took four or five minutes for the Accies defender to re-emerge after bandaging, but a bigger blow came after 41 minutes.
It was a tremendous move from County. Right-back Marcus Fraser worked a one-two with Irvine and cut the ball back from the bye-line to leave the prowling Curran with a simple tap-in.
The second half was unremarkable but, just before the hour, Boyce and De Vita linked superbly before Accies’ defence scrambled to cover. Accies were crying out for inspiration in the final stages of the game but seemed to lose their way despite toiling hard.
Jim McIntyre, the Ross County manager, was satisfied by the performance but believes there is better to come.
“Hamilton started better than us and had the chance to score from the penalty spot which was a crucial moment,” he said.
“Five minutes later, we took the lead and that was the shot in the arm we needed.
“Our spirit was there for everyone to see, but we can do better.”
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