A second win over Lanarkshire opposition was not the only reason Derek McInnes seemed doubly satisfied with his team’s efforts over this festive period because Aberdeen’s manager reckoned they had also overcome officialdom at Pittodrie yesterday.

Adam Rooney’s winner midway through the second half was no more than he thought they deserved since he needed no prompting to suggest it should have been their third goal rather than their second, while he also claimed to had seen clear evidence to support his initial view that the penalty that allowed Dougie Imrie to equalise three minutes after Ash Taylor’s opener should not have been given.

“How it’s chalked off I don’t know, it’s a perfectly valid goal,” he said of Mark Reynolds’ early headed strike.

“There’s no infringement on the goal-keeper which the referee suggested.”

They subsequently went ahead in similar fashion only for that second potentially crucial intervention by referee Andrew Dallas, or as McInnes put it: “…the referee gets involved with a penalty that was never a penalty.

“That’s the second time this season against Hamilton that we’re so aggrieved with the penalty decision against us. It’s never a penalty in its life. Joe makes the save.

“Obviously there’s going to be contact with players, but Joe’s touched the ball twice, it’s come off his leg and then his body.”

That, however, only gave his players a chance to demonstrate that they had learned from that experience and they took it.

“It’s not a penalty, it’s a bad decision, but at Hamilton we still had plenty time to do it to get the result going our way and we never that night, so we reminded the players not to hide behind the fact that it’s a poor decision,” said McInnes.

“It’s not stopping us winning the game. We’ve got to make sure we try to do our jobs well. It needed composure and confidence to keep the tempo of the game and I think the players are excellent from that point of view.”

Much of that seemed fair comment, but for all that Aberdeen deserved their victory it was not only the referee who made it difficult for them and McInnes’s assertions that they were ‘miles ahead’ slightly over-stated his team’s superiority because playing away from home to top three opposition, Hamilton were far better than a team that had not won since beating the Dons at New Douglas Park in October and has won just one of their last 16 matches in all.

Martin Canning, their manager, can continue to take some consolation from remaining strangely remained cushioned from the foot of the table by Inverness rather than having been set adrift, but ahead of this weekend’s derby meeting with Motherwell he knows they cannot count on that continuing to be the case if they do not end that win-less sequence soon.

"It is concerning but when you look at the table, you see that it's tight,” he observed.

“If it was only ourselves in that kind of form it would be more concerning and a lot of our games have been draws, but we know we have to start winning more games and Saturday against Motherwell is massive for us now.”

He was entitled, too, to ponder, as so many in his position have before, “what might have been.”

"We defended well today and I felt we counter attacked great, but goals change games and Ali Crawford had a great opportunity and if he had scored to make it 2-1 it would have become a different game.”

Perhaps so, but Crawford’s failure to make sufficiently powerful contact after Rakish Bingham had latched onto Dougie Imrie’s long ball and delivered the ball neatly into his path close to the penalty spot, was punished by Rooney’s poacher’s finish just two minutes later as the striker followed in on a fierce James Maddison strike from outside the penalty area that Hamilton goal-keeper Gary Woods could only block in front of himself and netted the rebound.

There was some irony in that Aberdeen’s boss having placated those urging him to stop tinkering with his team by selecting an unchanged team following the win at Motherwell, it was the day’s first change to his line-up that ultimately made the difference not least since, as McInnes also acknowledged, Crawford’s opportunity also came as a result of that change as Aberdeen re-shuffled to accommodate having put on a second striker.

If, then, the breaks ultimately went their way in those decisive moments they just about made up for what had happened in the first half.

A three goal half-time lead might have flattered them, but McInnes had a strong case for both objections to the decisions that went against his team and without asking too much of Woods they generated plenty of pressure through a series of corners before Jonny Hayes earned the free kick which he delivered perfectly for Taylor to deflect it into the net.

That disputed Hamilton equaliser was at least partly self-inflicted since Lewis was exposed and forced into action after a blocked attempted clearance had rebounded into the box for Danny Redmond to run onto, but the way Aberdeen responded felt telling as they maintained their pursuit of Rangers in the battle for second spot that the top of the Premiership table is now about.

Aberdeen: Lewis, Logan, Taylor, Reynolds, Considine (Maddison 60), McGinn (O’Connor 83), Jack, Shinnie, Hayes, McLean, Rooney

Scorers: Taylor (33), Rooney (67)

Hamilton: Woods, Gillespie, Sarris, Devlin, McMann, Longridge (E Brophy 73), Redmond, MacKinnon (Donati 81), Imrie, Crawford, Bingham (D’Acol 75)

Scorers: Imrie (36)

Referee: A.Dallas

Attendance: 13,131