Hamilton boss hails "breathtaking" Accies after blowing Airdrie away in derby

John Rankin hailed his “breathtaking” Hamilton Accies after their fast start blew derby rivals Airdrie away.

Connor Smith's strike inside the second minute and a Sam Graham own goal with just nine minutes on the clock put Accies on easy street in North Lanarkshire, before Kevin O'Hara and substitute Dylan McGowan netted in the second half to seal the points.

Rankin's men have now picked up back-to-back wins in the league to go sixth and piled the misery on their neighbours, who remain bottom of the pile.

And he said: “I studied Airdrie hard and their league position sort of worried me because I think they are in a false position. They dominate the ball, they’ve got lots of good players in forward areas and we had to make sure we didn’t underestimate them.

“The players gave Airdrie a huge amount of credit in the way we approached the game.

"We knew they start games fast and the challenge for the players was could we make that fast start?

“And I thought we were breathtaking in the first 10 minutes. The way we broke, our pace on the counter attack - the first 10 minutes won us the game. It got the fans on side and energised the players.

“Airdrie dominated the ball and had a lot of it around our box, but we handled it very well.

“I was frustrated at half-time because there was more goals for us. We weren’t ruthless enough in front of goal, so the challenge to the players was to go and finish it off in the second half.

“In August at our stadium we were 2-0 up [against Airdrie] and we lost two points, so I was raging with them that day. But we’ve learned lessons from that and I thought the players were really good the way they managed the game."

A Gordon Banks-esque save from Accies keeper Charlie Albinson on the stroke of