Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin bans 'league table' chat ahead of Cove crunch

Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin has banned all talk of the Championship table ahead of their biggest game of the season against Cove Rangers on Saturday.

Tuesday night’s 2-1 win over Raith Rovers pulled Accies off the foot of the table and above Cove by two points, with a game in hand.

They’re also three points behind eighth-placed Arbroath.

But Rankin said: “All I’m concentrating on is the next game, and all you can get is three points.

“We’re looking at Saturday and if we’re going to go out again and fight and scrap.

“But what I do know is there won’t be anybody speaking about a league table between now and then.

“We’ll get our heads down and go and grind again.

“We haven’t beat Cove yet, and there are a few teams we’ve not managed to beat this season, so we’re trying to put that right in the second half of the season.

“So far we’ve worked hard, we’ve grafted, we’ve become a team, a unit.

“We got a reaction to Saturday [7-0 defeat at Dundee] on Tuesday, and now we have to build on that, and build a bit of momentum.”

Rankin was delighted with Hamilton’s comeback win at Stark’s Park, and reckons few would have seen it coming.

“When you look at the league form this season I think that’s the first time we’ve come back from a goal down, or for a good period of time, to get three points out of the game,” he said.

“The neutral would have looked at 1-0 and thought ‘the game’s done, because they’ve not done that this season, and after a 7-0 at the weekend’.

“But credit to the boys. I know the spirit, I keep talking about it. I knew they were in the game and it was crucial that they got three points.

“The difference in the urgency and intensity between Saturday and Tuesday was night and day.”

Accies have offered fans all three