Birthday boy Canning sees positives in Hamilton's Partick Thistle draw

Hamilton manager Martin Canning did not get the gift he wanted on his 35th birthday as his side were held to a 1-1 draw by Partick - but he seemed happy enough.

The draw at the SuperSeal Stadium, coupled with results elsewhere, moved Accies up to eighth in the Ladbrokes Premiership table - and Canning felt it was a fair result.

Canning said: We can look on it in two ways, we're picking up points and moving up in the league, because we're in a better position than we were when we started - but again we put ourselves into a position to win the game and didn't do it.

I didn't think we did enough to win the game, a draw was probably a fair reflection of the game, there have been other games when we've been more dominant than that, so a draw was probably a fair result.

It is frustrating; it's not as if we gave them lots of opportunities and it was a backs-to-the-wall type of game, I thought we were still a threat ourselves.

Rakish Bingham is through one-on-one at a slight angle at 1-0, and that's maybe something we're not doing well enough.

We're maybe expecting to hang on to a 1-0 lead rather than score the second goal and go on the win the game, which is something we'll address. We take a point and move on.''

Thistle boss Alan Archibald felt aggrieved by several incidents during the game and believed his side would have been worthy winners.

He said his team should have had a penalty for handball, that there was a foul on Liam Lindsay in the build-up to Hamilton's opening goal and that Callum Booth's offside 'goal' should have stood.

He explained: I thought we deserved to win, in the second half performance especially.

We created a number of chances and scored a very good goal, the linesman has got it wrong and called it offside. I've seen it back - but the boys felt that it was offside at the time.

It's a sore one to take, but the performance was very good and I thought we dominated the second half.

I haven't looked back at it (Hamilton's goal) yet but Liam Lindsay felt there was a foul on him. As he tried to clear it his foot gets caught and tangles with his (opponent's). It's a hard one to call but the boys felt it was a foul.

It's frustrating; we need to win these 'six-pointers' and I think that's going to be the difference, because it's a tight, tight group.

In the last quarter of games we didn't win a lot, we drew too many games with our rivals, and we need to make sure we win the games.

It's a hard place to go to, and I thought we did enough to get the three points."