"We must be gluttons for punishment," said one regular to her companion as she took her seat in the New Douglas Park stand.

It was a harsh verdict on a side who most would agree have punched above their weight during their first season back in the top flight.

However, it has been ten games since Accies supporters last savoured victory and the natives are restlessly counting. Yet, this was a strange kind of torture for Hamilton supporters who must have detected glimpses of the gusto which characterised their team's performances during the first half of the season. It is just possible that on a raw early spring afternoon a winter of discontent may have been replaced by the green shoots of recovery.

That is certainly how it looked as Hamilton cruised into a two goal lead thanks to Jason Scotland's close-range finish and Dougie Imrie's breakaway strike. Sadly for them, Accies came up against a resurgent Ross County side who refused to succumb to the early onslaught and instead replied through Craig Curran's header and Michael Gardyne's rather scrappy, deflected equaliser to extend their unbeaten run to five games.

"It's disappointing for us but I thought we played well," said Imrie. "We gave ourselves a great chance to get that win and if we'd been able to see it out to half-time at 2-0 I think we would have gone on to get the points. But they got a lift from scoring before half-time and, it's an old cliché, but 2-1 is never a good score.

"At 2-0 we were well on top and could maybe have increased our lead but we picked the wrong options at times. The goals we lost were soft and we have to find a way to cut out the errors."

Thanks to St Johnstone's defeat, Hamilton are still in the top six and Imrie is convinced they can cap a successful season by remaining there. "Results have gone our way so we're still there and it would be disappointing to throw it away now," he added, "We've got some massive games coming up but I think we can take encouragement from the way we played today. I think a lot of the intensity was back in our play and the lads are just disappointed not to give the manager his first win - but it will come."

The manager in question - Martin Canning - opted to drop himself to the bench to assess his side's play from a different perspective. He could have had no complaints when Danny Redmand's corner was flicked on by Garcia Tena for Scotland to score at the back post. His mood would only have improved when Ali Crawford sparked a lightning counter-attack with a neat delivery to Redmond whose early pass sent Imrie racing clear to double the lead. However, Canning must have been concerned at the way in which County reduced the deficit as first Raffaele de Vita found space on the left to cross and then Curran was left alone to head high into the net.

The home manager's hopes of a first win since replacing Alex Neil were dashed when his side again failed to deal with a delivery into the box and Gardyne poked home the leveller with the aid of a deflection. County are now four points clear of bottom placed St Mirren and three ahead of Motherwell, a position of comfort few could have foreseen until recently.

"We were looking doomed," admitted Gardyne. "It's hard to put your finger on what has changed things but we certainly see no reason now why we shouldn't stay up. We had to show a lot of character after going 2-0 down but confidence is high after four wins in a row and that spurred us on. The manager (Jim McIntyre) deserves a lot of credit for the way he's got us playing. All the boys like him and enjoy working with him and all the backroom team. He's been encouraging the wide players to get in at the back post and I've set up a couple of goals for Raffa so it was nice of him to set me up for a change!"

McIntyre himself was understandably the more satisfied manager of the two as his side took their 13th point out of a possible 15 on offer since mid-February.

"We made a terrible start and gave away poor goals but I could see from the reaction of the players that we were never out of it," he said. "I thought overall we created really good chances and felt we should have been at least level at half-time but we maybe weren't ruthless enough. It was important at 2-0 that we got the next goal and I was really pleased that we clawed our way back into it. I'm also pleased with the point because other results have gone for us today but the only result you can affect yourself is your own. We've got another tough one next week against St Johnstone but we'll just keep trying to do our job."