Hamilton 3 St Mirren 0

St Mirren slumped to their fourth defeat in five games as a dismal display saw them lose 3-0 at Hamilton - a result which increases the pressure on manager Tommy Craig.

Tony Andreu gave the home side the lead just before half-time and Mickael Antoine-Curier doubled the lead midway through the second half. Ali Crawford added a third soon after to wrap up a deserved three points.

Hamilton were keen to get back to their impressive early-season form after defeat at Inverness last time out, and Crawford was the man who carried the fight to St Mirren early in the game.

Straight from kick-off the midfielder charged at the visiting defence, evading challenges before getting a shot on target, and then he flashed a drive just past the post from the edge of the area.

Danny Redmond then created another chance for Dougie Imrie, the left winger curling a lovely ball in between the St Mirren keeper and defence where Imrie stole in but could only succeed in prodding the ball over.

St Mirren had rarely been seen as an attacking force, but Sean Kelly found room on the left after 25 minutes where he unleashed a volley that Michael McGovern had to turn behind.

Hamilton's early momentum was slipping away towards the end of the half, and a fantastic whipped ball across goal by Jason Naismith would surely have resulted in a goal with any sort of touch but somehow the ball eluded everybody.

Just as St Mirren looked to be getting a foothold in the game, Hamilton took the lead after 40 minutes. A rather aimless cross by Antoine-Curier was only partially cleared to the edge of the area where Crawford beat a defender to the ball to toe-poke it to Andreu.

The Frenchman took a touch to steady himself before firing in an unstoppable right-footed effort low into the corner. The prolific Andreu had another chance at the start of the second half, Antoine-Curier curling a nice ball into the area from the right where he arrived late to nod over the bar under pressure.

A lovely move soon after involving some neat one-touch play between Grant Gillespie, Andreu and Antoine-Curier saw the latter released on the right, where his teasing centre was cleared behind for the corner. Redmond headed the resulting deep delivery back across goal where Antoine-Curier could not adjust his body shape in time to get a meaningful contact on the ball from six yards.

Again Accies threatened as they looked to get a killer second goal, this time a lovely whipped cross from Stephen Hendrie being glanced agonisingly past the upright by the head of Redmond.

They went even closer moments later with Redmond turning provider, picking out Antoine-Curier four yards from goal with a raking ball from the left-wing, but the forward hit his volley into the ground and Mark Ridgers got up to make a fine save.

The Saints keeper could not prevent Antoine-Curier from getting on the scoresheet for long, though, as Accies eventually got the second goal their pressure deserved after 67 minutes. Ridgers did well to make an initial save from Andreu, but when he looked to his defenders to help him out from the rebound they were static as Antoine-Curier followed up to finish.

St Mirren heads went down all over the park and it was of little surprise when a third Accies goal duly arrived after 76 minutes. Antoine-Curier found space again on the right where his low cross was prodded out by Naismith to the waiting Crawford, who had all the time in the world to pick his spot with ease.

Even so, St Mirren were unlucky to see two late efforts in quick succession hit the woodwork, Kenny McLean crashing an effort off the underside of the bar and McGovern then touching a Naismith shot onto the post.