HAMILTON forward Jason Scotland has told his young team-mates to banish the memory of their opening-day mistakes.
Accies fell to a 2-0 defeat by Inverness on their return to the Scottish Premiership and gifted Caley Thistle a number of chances.
Mikey Devlin’s slip allowed Billy McKay to score the opener and Ryan Christie made it two after Louis Longridge lost possession.
But Accies have a swift chance to make amends when they travel to St Mirren tonight and the experienced Scotland believes it is imperative that they look forward.
The 35-year-old said: “We know there’s a lot of improvement to be made but the boys are still in good spirits. We know we made a couple of mistakes and got punished, and obviously we will try and cut that out, but it’s just the first game.
“We can’t dwell on the game and we have to focus on this game. Everybody makes mistakes, I make mistakes, the gaffer makes mistakes.
“In the Championship, Mikey Devlin’s mistake might not have led to a goal, but it was a good finish from Billy McKay.
“The higher you go the more mistakes get punished, but we have a chance to put it right.
“We have a lot of young players so we can’t dwell on mistakes and past performances because their heads could easily go down.
“So we need to guide them as much as possible and always concentrate on the next game. The games come around thick and fast and hopefully we keep on improving.”
Hamilton hope to have Darian MacKinnon back in their squad after the midfielder dropped out of the team for last Saturday after being hit by a bug.
Midfielders Jon Routledge and Tony Andreu have both recovered from knee injuries but are still building up their fitness.
Meanwhile, St Mirren manager Tommy Craig is looking to sign winger Adam Drury on loan from Manchester City.
The 20-year-old winger is in the sights of the Paisley side, who began their season with defeat by Motherwell on Saturday.
City defender Ellis Plummer has already signed up to spend this season at St Mirren and made his Buddies debut at Fir Park.
“We expressed an interest in Adam some time ago,” said Craig yesterday.
“Man City have been delighted with how Ellis Plummer has got on since coming up.
“They came up with him, viewed the training ground and the pitch at the stadium and decided this was the place for him.
“Since then they have given us the nod that Adam is keen to follow too.
“At this moment in time there is nothing happening but within the next 24 hours we could see another Manchester City player here.”