Buddies Fight Back

St Mirren defender David van Zanten is well aware of the importance of Saturday's comeback against Hamilton when the Buddies put the brakes on their poor run of form with their first point in five games. The bottom side had gone into the game against their fellow strugglers on the back of four successive defeats and looked doomed again when goals from Jon Routledge and Dougie Imrie had the visitors ahead and seemingly cruising. However, striker Michael Higdon made up for missing an easy chance in the first half when he slammed in a brace in a spirited fightback to give Danny Lennon's men a much-needed point. Saints remain bottom of the table after the 2-2 draw, but are still only three points behind seventh-placed St Johnstone as they prepare for a difficult run of games against Hearts, Aberdeen and Rangers.

Van Zanten said: "You don't want any kind of gap. But at the moment, there are six or seven teams quite close, all within touching distance of each other. Things can change on a weekly basis, we know that and hopefully we will get a win in the next game. Being two nil down and getting a draw shows that we have great character and hopefully that will serve us well. It was very important not to lose the game. We had come off the back of a couple of bad results and we were determined to turn it around so a draw will hopefully give us a bit of momentum. It's not easy to come back from a goal down or two goals down. So we've got to stop that and hopefully score first."

Imrie, who scored a somewhat bizarre goal when Nigel Hasselbaink's cross came off his back as he tumbled in the box, claims Accies need to turn their good play into more points. The Hamilton winger said: "We are playing well and not getting wins, that is the frustrating thing. We shouldn't be where we are at the moment. It's another two points dropped. We had the possession and created the chances and then we lost two stupid goals. We should have got two more against Kilmarnock and we should have got a point against Rangers where we lost a goal in the 90th minute so we have to work on that. I was delighted to get a goal but just frustrated that we didn't win."