Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin says they suffered a ‘cruel’ Scottish Cup exit at St Johnstone and hailed the endeavour of his side against the Premiership outfit.
The Championship side looked to be heading for extra-time at McDiarmid Park with the tie locked level at 0-0.
But Graham Carey’s 87th minute strike took a wicked deflected off team-mate Adama Sidibeh to find the back of the net and send Accies crashing out at the last 16 stage.
And gutted Rankin, whose side had a big chance before it when Oli Shaw went through one-on-one, said: “It was cruel. When I look at the game I think we defended well, created some opportunities going forward, but to concede a goal like that to put you out of the cup is cruel after all the effort and endeavour the players put in.
“Oli’s had an opportunity almost one-on-one with the goalkeeper, the defender is on his shoulder. Oli is aware of the defender so he takes his touch away from the defender to get his shot away and goes near post. The goalkeeper makes the save.
“Players through one-on-one aren’t going to score every time but all you can ask is that he gets a shot on target and works the goalkeeper and he did that.
“He’s scored plenty of opportunities in the past. He’s missed this one but the amount of points he got us this season, we know he will take another one soon.
“I’m more disappointed in the manner we’ve conceded the goal and how fortunate it was for St Johnstone, rather than Oli missing that chance.
“We were really positive, making changes to try and get into the next round. We wanted to nick a goal.
“We knew they had the bulk of possession but we knew we would get chances on teh breakaway and we did that.
“I thought we deserved to take the tie to extra-time.”