MARTIN Canning admitted Hamilton were the architects of their own downfall as they gifted Saints an unlikely victory with some keystone cop defending.
Disastrously, Dougie Imrie and Scott McMann were caught in two minds and hesitated as Blair Alston played the ball through and allowed Stefan Scougall to race through and grab his first Saints goal.
Canning said: “One stupid mistake is the reason we lost it. I don’t think St Johnstone have won the game, we have given it to them. We were the better side and only have ourselves to blame
“It was a matter of miscommunication as Scott has shouted and left it for Dougie. Unfortunately for us it has cost us on the day. I won’t point fingers, it was a mistake from Dougie and Scott but we won’t hold it against them.
“To come away with nothing is so sore. We should have been out of sight at half time.”
Accies should have scored twice inside the first 17 minutes and that would have flattened Saints but their finishing let them down and they paid the price.
Darrian MacKinnon played in Darren Lyon with a clever pass in nine minutes giving him a clear run at Zander Clark’s goal. He tried to lift the ball over the goalkeeper but put too much on it and his shot dropped over the bar.
Then Antonio Rojano was brilliantly set up by Imrie when the Accies skipper hit a fantastic pass in behind Steven Anderson but incredibly Rojano shot over the bar from eight yards.
Saints were better in the second half and Steven Anderson should have scored in 62 minutes when David Wotherspoon’s corner dropped at his feet three yards out but he couldn’t get a touch.
However, then can the Imrie and McMann mix-up four minutes later when they left Alston’s ball to each other, and Scougall couldn’t believe his luck as he raced through to score.
Delighted Tommy Wright said: “It is a big three points for us. When you’ve been on the run we’ve been on, and losing last week when people expected us to win, this was always going to be a big game for us.
"It was far more like us – we looked really solid and we have come away with a clean sheet. A lot of our problems recently have been self-inflicted, but you couldn’t say that today.”
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