Hamilton ace's 'wouldn't play like that in a friendly' verdict on Inverness loss after dismal first half

It wouldn't have been acceptable for a pre-season friendly - so Hamilton defender Brian Easton knows conceding four first half goals away at Inverness in competitive action is far from hitting their required standards.

Tom Walsh's brace plus Shane Sutherland and Joe Hardy goals inside 30 brutal minutes had Accies go down 4-0 losers in their final Championship match of this season.

Head coach Stuart Taylor's first season in charge ends with the club sixth, after he took over from Brian Rice last August, following Premiership relegation.

Easton was named on the bench but the experienced centre-back was brought on for attacker Ellis Brown to help stop a thrashing from becoming a rout.

Achieving that goal is no solace to the 34-year-old, who has held his hands up and said sorry to the fans who made a long journey north to watch their team.

He said: "You don't want to come on at 4-0 but I was itching to get on with the way things were going. The goals we lose are really cheap.

"We need to apologise to the fans who have made the journey up to this one. It's not the way we want to end our season.

"We wouldn't want to play like that in a pre-season friendly. That will stick in the mind for a long time as we are all professionals."

Easton was furious earlier in this campaign when Partick Thistle put Hamilton to the sword in a comprehensive 6-1 win for the Jags at New Douglas Park.

He thought they had got such a performance out their system, and was gutted to see a similar collapse appear in the Highlands.

It'll now linger around Taylor's playing group until the summer when they begin their Premier Sports Cup group stage campaign in July.

The defender added: "We are all competitors. We want to win games and we don't want to be