It has been a long wait for St Mirren fans but they can finally celebrate a home win this season. Manager Gary Teale was a relieved man after his side recorded their first home win of the season - at the 14th attempt - with a 1-0 Scottish Premiership win over Hamilton. The Buddies overcame the blustery conditions in Paisley and deserved their win over the off-form Accies thanks to skipper Steven Thompson's second-half volley. It was also the captain's first league goal of an injury-hit season and Teale was thrilled to finally collect the three points in front of the home faithful.
Asked if the win had been a long time coming, he replied: "Far too long! It's certainly nice now that we can just look forward. I've tried to take as much pressure off the team as I can, and I just said that anything that has gone in the past there's no point dwelling on it, we just need to approach every game in a positive frame of mind and thankfully we managed to get the win. I thought it was (well deserved), if I'm honest with you. Certainly first half, the amount of balls we had in the box and the opportunities where maybe a little bit more care or composure would have worked out well for us, but unfortunately we never managed to do that until the second half. At the end of the day, with the position we're in in the league and with the conditions, we're just delighted to get the win."
Teale had been trying to keep his players from dwelling on the fact the team had not won at home since last May ahead of today's visit by Hamilton. St Mirren are still sandwiched by Ross County and Motherwell, both winners on Saturday, in the bottom three. Teale remained optimistic the club could escape relegation, as well as the dreaded play-offs, despite being level on 21 points with the Staggies and Steelmen after 28 games, one more than their drop-zone rivals. He went on: "I just look forward all the time. Anything that's gone in the past we can analyse it as staff in terms of what we do to try to put it right. I think a lot of our performances this season at home have probably merited a win but it's not happened. Hopefully I'm sitting here come the end of the season and I'm speaking about going on a run where we've won every home game. I've said right from day one that we can only concentrate on what we're doing and, as long as our performances are decent and we're picking up victories, then it's always going to be in our hands. We just need to concentrate on ourselves. I know it's pretty boring and a cliche as well, but taking one game at a time is how it is and that's how it has to be."
Hamilton player-manager Martin Canning was, in stark contrast, furious with his fifth-placed side's performance. Defender Canning has yet to enjoy the winning feeling since replacing Norwich City-bound Alex Neil at the Accies' helm nine matches ago. He said: "It was a poor game quality-wise, and the disappointing thing was that St Mirren seemed to want it more. With the group of players I've got and with what I know they're capable of, that hurts me more than anything."