THE fine detail was dependent on Celtic beating Dundee United yesterday but you don't need history-books or hard stats for verification that Hamilton Academical are having the time of their lives in Scotland's Premiership.

Talk of the club's best start to any season since sitting fourth after 17 top-flight games in 1934/35 was doing the rounds on social media after victory in Dingwall.

Martin Canning's thumping early header proved enough to win it on a day of grit from Hamilton in the icy north. Given how often their exploits this season have had folk delving into the record-books, they really should be blowing their own trumpet and playing Roy Castle's 'Record Breakers' theme over the New Douglas Park tannoy these days. Canning, the club captain and match-winner, admits he is just revelling in being part of a team that keeps the club historians so busy.

"Every week, we hear some new statistic about something we've done," Canning said. "That's obviously all good stuff - it's great to be part of a team that's making history for the club. It is just a very good time to be involved at Hamilton. We're doing well, so long may it continue."

By October, Alex Neil's side had already secured the record start to a Premiership campaign of any newly-promoted side. But after eight wins and two draws from the first 11 league matches of the season, Neil's young team stuttered and suffered a rush of defeats through late October, November and early December. That slump had some claiming they weren't cut out for the rough-and-tumble of the top flight at times when the fancy football faded.

Saturday's display at the Global Energy Stadium, though, emphatically slapped that theory down. Hamilton not only won ugly but proved that their flair players could put in a powerful shift and take on the less-glamorous work duties when required.

"We had a difficult period of games where we stopped winning and suffered some bad defeats," Canning said. "But if you look at it, we lost away to Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness and I think a good few teams will lose at those places.

"We've steadied the ship and fought our way back to form. That's three out of four now, so we've bounced back well. Hopefully that's us back on a lengthy winning run. We approach every game to try and win and sometimes it doesn't happen. But the biggest thing is we don't get carried away.

"When we win we don't get too excited and when we lose we don't get too down. That way we can try and keep some sort of consistency to it."

Canning's terrific header was his third goal of the campaign - something of a record in it's own right. "I'm prolific this year! I think I was one goal in 55 games before this season, so that's good going for me," the former Gretna and Ross County defender said. "The big thing for me is that's the first time in my career I've scored a goal that's actually been important. The goals I've tended to get have been in 3-1 or 4-1 wins, so they've kind of been meaningless goals. It's great to score a genuinely important goal."

Statistics are best avoided for those of a County persuasion right now, but away from the hard facts surrounding defeats there has been some encouragement for Jim McIntyre's men. They had hauled themselves off bottom place the week before with a draw at Motherwell and, frequently of late, might deservedly have taken more from matches. In the first half on Saturday, though, they pretty much got exactly what they deserved.

Hamilton were the much better side on the ball and County looked in disarray after losing what proved to be the winning goal after just six minutes. From the first corner, delivered expertly by Ali Crawford, Canning's towering leap beat Jackson Irvine and arced high past goalkeeper Toni Reguero. Soon after, Stephen Hendrie might well have slid in to score a second but narrowly failed to connect on Mickael Antoine-Curier's low ball into the six-yard box. County showed only flashes of what they were capable of with midfielder Martin Woods drawing a save from Michael McGovern then firing over after a great passing move.

For Antonio Reguero, County's Spanish goalkeeper, the defeat was tough to take. The man from Madrid feels the squad must, collectively, harden up for the battles ahead. "Everyone - myself included - will have to show more character and more fight. As a group, we need to be more ruthless," the 32-year-old said. "We expected more from this game. We felt we could take the three points and we really worked hard during the week. It's a big shame. Sometimes it is very frustrating because opponents score first and it always becomes really difficult to get back into the game. "But we need to show the mental strength to keep going as the games ahead are so important."