Hamilton Accies boss apologises for Scottish Cup exit after 'lack of quality' hampers side in defeat to Kelty Hearts
dailyrecord.co.ukJohn Rankin apologised to Hamilton Accies fans for their Scottish Cup exit after admitting his players lacked energy and quality in the defeat to Kelty Hearts.The Accies boss watched his side crash out at the first hurdle against their part-time League One rivals, with two stunning strikes in the space of nine second half minutes ending their journey at the third round stage.Reece Lyon broke the deadlock in 66 minutes when he got on the end of substitute Stefan McCluskey's lay-off to thump a volley into the bottom corner from just inside the box.And then Lewis Moore made sure of their progress in 75 minutes when he unleashed an unstoppable strike into the top corner from 25 yards.There were boos and some choice words fired towards the home dugout afterwards, and Rankin apologised for the performance that has his side out of all cup competitions before Christmas.He said: “It’s extremely disappointing as we’ve gone out of the cup.
The result was poor but the performance in the second-half was just as bad."They scored two well-taken goals, but they were both preventable."Credit to Kelty, I thought they were really organised, disciplined, and caused us problems in the second-half but we were nowhere near good enough."The supporters are always looking for a run in the cup, so we apologise to the supporters for the performance. "Today was a bad day.
It lacked energy and quality."The players have been on a really good run in previous weeks, but we've lost to Cove, Raith and now Kelty."Today has given us a marker of where we are and not getting ahead of ourselves."Accies had their chances in the first half.
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