Hamilton 0-2 Inverness: Accies taught a lesson by Christie-led Caley

Hamilton Accies manager Alex Neil reckons stage fright cost his team an opening-day defeat.

The Scottish Premiership newcomers kicked-off their campaign in the top flight with defeat at home to Caley Thistle.

Both goals were conceded in the opening 25 minutes of the match and Neil feels his young side were slightly overawed by the occasion.

“I think they were just testing the water and seeing what this level is like rather than going out there and giving what they’ve got,” said Neil.

“I think we did that in the second-half. I thought there was an improvement and I said to the players those mistakes will cost us at this level we are up against better players and better teams.

“We also had chances ourselves both at the end of the first-half and during the second-half so we gave as good as we got at times.

“But I hope the supporters don’t turn on us because we have a young side and they are still learning.

“Caley are a top-six team as well so I believe we will learn from this and get going from now on.”

Neil’s views were echoed by club captain Martin Canning who is convinced his team-mates will improve.

“I’ve no doubts about that,” said the stopper. “The damage was done during the opening period of the match but we recovered well after conceding the two cheap goals.

“But we spoke about it after the game and we know we are capable of better as we showed in the second-half.”

The one thing Accies will learn and learn fast is you can’t afford to gift goals to the opposition in the top flight.

That, unfortunately for defender Mikey Devlin, was exactly what it was as he was short with an attempted back pass 10 minutes into the game which Billy McKay pounced on and lobbed into the net.

There was a glaring naivety in Accies’ play as they continued to try and play it out from the back, even although Caley’s front players were swarming all over them and forcing mistakes.

So it came as no surprise when the visitors doubled their lead in the 25th minute when Ryan Christie was rewarded for following in Danny Williams’ effort as it fell nicely into his path to slot home.

Accies boss Neil was playing in the middle of the park so he would have known better than anyone it wasn’t working and a new approach was required for the second-half.

And, in fairness to Accies, there were definite improvements as the errors were replaced by some decent attacking moves with Dougie Imrie and Mickael Antoine Curier both forcing saves from Caley keeper Dean Brill.

In the end, however, the goal they craved to make a fist of this one didn’t arrive and it was John Hughes’ men who looked the most likely to add a third as they hit on the break.

Unfortunately, the man at the helm of the Highland’s club doesn’t believe it is part of his duties to share his thoughts on the game with anyone.

Despite the fact his side were impressive at times, it was a nice, positive start to the campaign and an incident free encounter, Hughes clearly isn’t interested in sharing his views fans of his own club or any other for that matter.

Instead, it was down to full-back Graeme Shinnie to shower praise on his team-mates and in particular goalscorer Billy McKay.

He said: “He’s started where he left off last season by scoring goals and he is such an important player for us.

“But it was a good performances from us, we scored a couple of early goals and it’s nice to start the season with a victory.”