Hamilton Accies boss John Rankin praised his “ruthless” side, and said they’re going to need every member of the squad as they bid to preserve their Championship status against Airdrie next week.
Accies overturned a 2-0 deficit on the day and 3-0 on aggregate against League One side Alloa, to win 5-2 and progress through to the play-off final.
Connor Sammon put the Wasps ahead in five minutes and Stefan Scougall doubled that lead in 31 minutes, netting the rebound from his own penalty being saved by Jamie Smith, who had fouled Sammon for the award.
That was despite George Stanger being sent off in 23 minutes for two bookings inside four minutes.
Dario Zanatta and Andy Winter scored doubles each, with Winter bagging his first ever senior hat-trick seven minutes into the second half to put Accies through.
Rankin said: “We’ve been working since last Friday on scoring goals, getting bodies in the box, creating chances, and making sure it was all about that.
“We had to, we’ve been doing it all season, creating chances and not taking them, and today we did.
“We were ruthless when they came our way, I can only maybe think of two chances off the top of my head that we didn’t take.
“We hit the target and made some really good opportunities and I’m really pleased, but it’s a squad game.
“We’re going to need every player between now and the end of the next two games to get us to where we need to get to.”
Rankin also said his side were resilient and could have crumbled as fans staged a protest against the Accies board and owner Colin McGowan after Alloa’s second goal.
He said: “We were 3-0 down in the tie, we could have been impatient, could have got erratic, could have let the crowd turning against us get to us – because they turned against us, let’s be honest, with the noise in the stadium – it was hostile.
“But I knew with the team we selected today that we had players that could pass the ball, handle the ball, and were able to create opportunities.
“I felt even at 2-0 we would win the game today, and the tempo and the energy as soon as we got the first changed the game.
“I’ve got to give my players huge credit. Alloa are a good side, we saw that today and credit to them, because at 3-0 down [on aggregate] we could have gone down, the players could have felt sorry for themselves and they could have taken the opportunity to slide out, but I tell you what, they didn’t.
“The camaraderie they have, the respect they show one another, that came through this afternoon at a challenging time.
“We’ve had opportunities here this season that we haven’t taken against 10 men, and we learned our lesson today.”
Follow Lanarkshire Live Sport on Twitter via @LanLiveSport, like us on Facebook or find us on Instagram for the latest sports news, pictures and video.
