Dougie Imrie lauds keeper Remi Matthews after Hamilton edge past Ross County

Dougie Imrie hailed goalkeeper Remi Matthews as the match-winner after the Norwich loanee produced a stunning save just before Hamilton grabbed their clincher against Ross County.

Matthews was forced into producing a brilliant reaction save to stop Michael Gardyne from heading an Alex Schalk cross into the net 17 minutes from time.

Less than a minute later a goalmouth scramble saw Darian MacKinnon leave the ball to Imrie, who lifted it over the prone Scott Fox in the County goal.

Imrie said: ''If they had scored that would have put them in the driving seat at 1-0. Remi pulls off a great save, he's done that since he came in, and we went up the other end of the park and scored the winner. Remi's probably the match winner in that sense - I know I scored the goal but if he didn't pull off that save who knows, Ross County could have gone on to win the game.''

On his goal, Imrie added: ''It just fell to me, I lifted it over the keeper who was already down and I think he thought Darian couldn't get the shot away. Thankfully for me when he mis-kicked it it fell right onto my foot and I've lifted it over him. It's good to get the win and I thought the boys were excellent. It has been a long time coming. Against Kilmarnock and then Dundee we had numerous chances to win both games and to be fair Jamie MacDonald pulled off a great save from Ali Crawford in the Kilmarnock game because if that had gone in it would have been 2-0, the game would have been done and instead they got a lift from that. Against Dundee we were 1-0 up but lost a goal three or four minutes after from a corner. In the second half we battered them but the keeper pulled off some great saves and we missed some glorious chances. But we managed to get the goal and do everything right at the other end. Their goalkeeper made some good saves, we didn't take enough of our chances, but I'll take 10 1-0 wins. It's a great result for us, it's three points and gets us up that table.''

Ross County defender Erik Cikos admitted his side didn't want the win enough.

He said: ''It wasn't a good performance from our side, we were not quick enough, they looked much more hungry than us and it was a poor result. Mitch had a great chance but they counter-attacked on us and scored. We just didn't look like we had in the games before, we weren't quick enough, strong enough and that was the reason. They looked like they wanted to win it more.''