Hamilton Accies boss warns results must start to match performances

John Rankin says his Hamilton Accies players have shown him they would ‘run through a brick wall for each other’ – but says they can’t let their heads drop and must start picking up results.

The Accies boss was left frustrated as their first league goals of the season through Oli Shaw and Jamie Barjonas had them 2-1 ahead at Ayr United on Saturday, only for Marco Rus and George Oakley to hand the Honest Men a 3-2 win at Somerset Park.

Three games in that leaves Accies with just one Championship point as they welcome Dunfermline Athletic to New Douglas Park, and while Rankin saw good signs in the seaside defeat, he knows results have to change.

“I don’t think you can ever question the character and commitment of the players. I think the group we have, they would run through a brick wall for one another,” said Rankin.

“You need that spirit and commitment, and ultimately it will see you good, but when you look at where we are now, that’s us played three games – albeit this is one from the second quarter – and we need to start picking up points.

“Results-wise we’ve had a poor start to the season, but we’re finding our feet, we’re playing some good football, but we need to find a way of winning games.”

Rankin added: “We have been creating chances and ultimately in the first two games we’ve not taken them.

“Oli scores a great goal, it’s a good finish and a really well-worked goal, and Barjo gets himself one v one and in those situations he can go by the guy, so we knew that would happen.

“It’s two really good quality goals, but if you score two goals here and you don’t get anything out of the game, you’ve got to question how we’ve defended as a team, and ultimately we need to improve on that.

“We’ll play a lot worse than we