John Rankin hailed his Hamilton Accies heroes and said their SPFL Trust Trophy win showed the spirit they will need to survive in the Championship.
Reghan Tumilty’s 29th-minute strike was enough to give Accies their first trophy win in over 30 years, despite being down to 10 men for 35 minutes, after Dan O’Reilly’s straight red card for a foul on Sam Stanton.
It also didn’t help that Accies had to contend with injuries to striker Benny Ashley-Seal, winger Marley Redfern and defender Matty Shiels.
Accies put in a backs-against-the-wall performance to lift silverware, and Rankin reckons they’re going to need more of that in the weeks to come.
He said: “I’m teetotal, I’m a non-drinker so I’ll let the players go and enjoy their night.
“It’s important that they enjoy this together and enjoy the spirit, and these moments in your career come few and far between.
“I want them to enjoy it and build more spirit amongst them.
“You can see the spirit’s there, I’ve mentioned it for a good few weeks now. The spirit you can see when first of all Benny gets injured, then Marley and Shielsy and we have to take him off at half-time.
“The desire for Shielsy to get through another 12 minutes when he’s injured, to get us to half-time so we can make a sub without there being a stoppage in the game enables us then to make a change when Dan gets sent off.
“That’s the spirit and togetherness that we need, and the players can go and enjoy their night, but they will be in for training tomorrow.
“We’ve got a battle to win, and that’s the most important thing.
“These moments are big, but the spirit of the team has to be big as well.”
Goalkeeper Ryan Fulton was a hero for Accies, producing a string of fine saves to deny Raith Rovers as they tried to make their numerical advantage count.
And the Accies gaffer says there were others who made their mark.
Rankin said: “At one point I thought how else can we help these players, but the players helped us – that’s the truth of the matter.
“Reegan Mimnaugh and Scott Martin were brilliant in the middle of the pitch, Lucas De Bolle had great moments of composure when we really needed it.
“The three leaders, Dylan McGowan and Brian Easton were exceptional, and Fulton for me sums up for me what he has been all season.
“He’s the stand-out goalkeeper in the league for me, and at times he’s kept the score down, and that’s me being brutally honest.
“Today I wouldn’t say he single-handedly won us the cup but he made some unbelievable saves to make sure we lifted silverware.”
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