Hamilton 1-2 Partick Th: Archibald lauds stand-in Edwards

Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald praised Ryan Edwards for his professionalism in being a late stand-in and matchwinner against Hamilton.

The Australian replaced Liam Lindsay in the starting line-up 10 minutes before kick-off due to the latter's hamstring injury.

"Ryan's always ready to go and we trust him on the pitch," said Archibald.

"He fitted in perfectly. He had a good game up to his goal and gave us a great bit of energy in the final third."

Edwards' headed winner in front of the travelling support was the former Reading midfielder's first senior goal.

It followed Mathias Pogba's equaliser after Greg Docherty had given Accies an early lead.

"We've had a poor record of late at Hamilton so we're delighted to get the victory having gone a goal down," Archibald told BBC Scotland.

"It's massive to get that three points going into the international break. We've had six games in 18 or 19 days so we've got a lot of weary legs in there.

"Liam Lindsay did the warm-up and felt his hamstring so we had to reshuffle a bit and I think it affected us for the first goal - we weren't quite set up right.

"But the lads showed great character to come back from it. I don't think we handled Hamilton first-half, for the first 25 minutes especially, but we got the hang of it.

"We knew that if we had a wee bit of guile in the final third then we could score goals."

It is six months to the day, meanwhile, since Accies' last win at New Douglas Park and for a long time it looked like that unenviable record would end in front of an improved 3,055 crowd.

Greg Docherty, left, put Accies ahead

Hamilton player-manager Martin Canning was left frustrated by the defeat.

"First-half we're 1-0 up and comfortable in the game," he said. "Second-half we conceded a poor goal and from there I don't think we competed well enough.

"I don't think our goalkeeper had a save to make; it's two crosses into the box and we lose two goals from it, which at any level is poor.

"Home form should be good enough that we're able to go and win games.

"All our quality players are on the park and I'm asking them to just go and play; enjoy the game, get your foot on it and play. We didn't do it well enough.

"I don't know if conceding the goal unsettled us but that's going to happen in football; you're going to concede and you've got to go and believe in yourself."