MARTIN Canning, the Hamilton manager, watched his side recover from their defeat at Ayr before welcoming an improved team performance and the individual contribution of new signing Massimo Donati.
The former Celtic star capped a fine debut display with the third goal after efforts from Ali Crawford and Dougie Imrie had put Accies in control.
Canning, strongly criticised by his club’s fans last week, said: “I thought he [Donati] was excellent today.
“As a team we played well but as an individual for his first game I thought he was excellent and his goal just topped it off with a wee bit of quality.
“I think we play well through him but we have quality throughout the side.”
St Mirren manager Alex Rae also had words of praise for Donati, adding: “He looked like a superstar – he could go for £100 million, never mind [Juventus midfielder Paul] Pogba! That's how good he actually looked at times.”
Hamilton may have gone into this match with a sense of trepidation given their own defeat at Ayr coupled with the fact that Saints were looking for a third straight win.
However, Canning’s team took control virtually from the start and made early pressure count with the opener on thirteen minutes.
Imrie was the architect with a pass to Grant Gillespie whose cross provided an easy finish for Crawford.
The visitors had a chance to level when Lewis Morgan beat his man before delivering a looping cross which was headed just wide of the far post by David Clarkson.
At the other end Hamilton should have doubled their lead Alex D’Acol’s low effort was turned away by Jamie Langfield.
However, the second goal duly arrived on the restart as Imrie latched onto a loose ball in the Saints area before firing home from 12 yards.
The Buddies almost pulled one back when a Stevie Mallan corner caused confusion in the box but Accies survived.
The best was saved until last for the Hamilton support as summer signing Donati delivered the coup de grace with a low drive into the bottom corner from 25 yards.
With Donati safely on board, Canning had further good news for Accies supporters when he confirmed the signing of the 27 year-old Greek central defender Georgios Sarris from Kayseri in the Turkish league.
He said: “We actually looked at him last year but he got a big offer to go to Turkey, and this year he had an offer to stay in Turkey again but he decided to come here.
So hopefully he does well. It’s a good one for us to get in, a big aggressive centre back. We’ll get him training on Monday and see how he does with a view to maybe getting him involved in the match a week today.”
St Mirren manager Alex Rae was disappointed with his side’s failure to
make the leap to match their Premiership opponents.
He said: “I said to them prior to the game that it was a wee step up in class. It’s
very basic, if you don’t do the basics right especially against a team that are actually very good technically then you obviously get punished.
“It’s the dirty side of the game, the tracking back and defending and they need to learn from that game, but it was a good learning curve for the midfield.
“It’s important they start learning from the analysis and if they don’t learn from it they’ll be stuck in the Championship.”
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