Hamilton Accies forward Kevin O’Hara says they need to make a fast start and find consistency in their performance if they are to overcome Morton on Saturday.
The New Douglas Park side are still licking their wounds from last Friday night’s 3-1 defeat at home to league leaders Falkirk, where Accies found themselves 3-0 down inside 34 minutes and were fortunate not to be a few more goals behind.
The Accies fans booed their side off the pitch at the break and the team responded with an improved performance in the second half, but it was too little too late with Euan Henderson’s strike a mere consolation as they slipped to seventh in the table.
So with Morton – who knocked Accies out of the SPFL Trust Trophy earlier this month in a 1-0 win at NDP – visiting this weekend, O’Hara says there has to be a reaction.
He said: “After the last couple of weeks’ performances and results, we need to come out flying.
“The reaction from the support last week was merited. The last couple of weeks haven’t been good enough from everyone on the pitch.
“It has been a collective that hasn’t been good enough but we all want to put that right this week and get the fans on board right away.
“We can’t wait for the second half to start getting into the game and getting balls into the box. We need to do that from the first whistle. Consistency is key in any team and we need to start picking up results.
“Morton gave us a tough game in the cup the other week so we know they are a good side. They play good stuff as well so we will need to be wary of that. But we want to make sure we start well.
“Training has been good this week so the boys are in good spirits. We can’t wait for the game now.”
O’Hara admits this week’s debrief was a tough watch as they assessed what went wrong against the Bairns and says lessons will be learned from that performance.
He added: “It was a disappointing result and performance, and we know as a squad that we need to be a lot better than that.
“We’ve looked back at the game on the video and we know it wasn’t great. We’ve seen what we could have done better defensively and in attack. “In the first half, we got caught pressing high and sitting off them.
“Falkirk are a really good side and their record shows that over the last year. They have got really good players and they have good movement so it is difficult, but we need to be a lot better on the ball when we win it back. We need to keep it a lot better instead of trying to go forward too quickly.
“When we do go forward, we need to choose the right pass or better option to get us into a position to score goals. We’ve had good spells in a half but we haven’t put a complete performance together, so hopefully we can do that on Saturday.”
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