Defender Dan O'Reilly says with some better defending Hamilton Accies would be sitting in the safety of eighth place going into the last knockings of the season, but now they face an anxious wait to see if their survival hopes will be in their own hands on the final day.
Accies are joint-bottom of the table with Cove Rangers after Saturday's dramatic late draw with Partick Thistle means only goal difference has them just ahead of their rivals, who play their game in hand on Friday night away to leaders Dundee.
O'Reilly, who is the club's top scorer with six goals, netted a double against Partick and his 90th minute effort looked to have won the game, only for Steven Lawless to add to Brian Graham's opener in stoppage time.
It was a real sickener for Accies after watching a lead slip to Inverness last midweek in a 2-1 defeat.
And now O'Reilly must hope Cove don't take anything from Dundee to leave his side with the best shot of avoiding automatic relegation when they travel to Arbroath on May 5.
The Irishman said: "It was good to get the two goals but at the end of the day, we should have won the game - especially after coming from behind to get ourselves in a good position.
“That just seems to be our luck lately. We did the same against Inverness last Tuesday after going in front.
“If we had held onto those leads against Inverness and Partick, we would have been in a great position to finish eighth.
"But now we are depending on other results to go our way.
“The Thistle equaliser wasn’t the cleanest of strikes, it wasn’t a great goal. It was just kind of slack from us all over.
“We have to know how to see it out. We got ourselves in a winning position so late on in the game. To then shoot ourselves in the foot is quite disheartening.
“But there’s no point in dwelling on it. We are still ahead of Cove on goal difference but are looking at other teams doing us favours, which isn’t ideal."
Accies have just under a fortnight to prepare for the trip to Gayfield under the lights, where they will be desperate to claim the relegation play-off slot.
On the final day Cove host Morton, who are managed by Accies legend Dougie Imrie so the club hero could do his old side a huge favour there.
But O'Reilly says Accies can only focus on what they have to do, as even a win for Cove at Dundee of less than four goals followed by a defeat for them at Morton would still see Accies finish in ninth if they can beat Arbroath, thanks to their superior goal difference.
“We just need to go to Arbroath for our last game in two weeks knowing we need to win. We can’t worry about what could happen elsewhere," said the centre-back.
“The focus now will be on one last push for the Arbroath game and then we will see where we are.”
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