Mark McGhee savours flying start for Motherwell

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee described their lightning start against Hamilton as the benchmark after Louis Moult grabbed a 13-minute hat-trick.

McGhee has been claiming that Motherwell will pick up once Moult returned from groin surgery and he has been thoroughly vindicated.

The former Wrexham striker earned Motherwell a point with a goal off the bench against Ross County last week and he had them three up inside 21 minutes before netting another spot-kick to inspire his team to a 4-2 Lanarkshire derby win.

Moult has now struck seven times this season in just 210 minutes of action either side of his operation and his energy up front, combined with some neat and crisp passing, earned Motherwell three Premiership points despite a spirited fightback from Accies, who struck twice through Ali Crawford.

McGhee said: ''The way of getting to 3-0 was the way you hope to play - the quality of the goals and obviously Moulty coming back and getting a hat-trick. We have talked a lot about how much we needed him back and that proves it. We passed the ball really well in that first 35 minutes. We passed the ball they way we asked them to pass it. A lot of it was really, really good. And we have seen it out. Credit to them, they came on to us, they didn't give up the ghost at 3-0. They have a terrific little player in Crawford who kept them in the game. It was a strange afternoon of nervousness at times. Their shape changed and stretched us a little bit and they had a few chances.''

Moult only needed an hour to complete his four-goal haul.

''He was ready to come off,'' McGhee said. ''When he came off, he wanted off in a sense. It was a good hour, that will bring him on and he will get another week's training and hopefully he will get at least an hour next week and start to really get back, and maybe score more goals.''

Hamilton manager Martin Canning admitted his side paid the price for a lacklustre start. The first 20 minutes killed us,'' he said. We don't start the game at all, we don't compete. We stressed before the game, regardless of performances up until now, how important it was to compete from minute one in a derby game. It took us 20 minutes to start to compete.''

Canning helped change the flow of the game by moving Grant Gillespie from left-back into midfield and moving Massimo Donati back into a three-man central defence.

''From there, we were the dominant team, we created a lot of opportunities and on another day we score more goals than two,'' he said.

''It's always difficult coming back from 3-0 down but I think, if we got it within one goal, I think we could have potentially taken something from the game, which speaks volumes for the players that they don't give up.

On another day we probably take something from it if we can put the ball in the back of the net. After we started to compete, we created a lot of chances but the damage was pretty much done.''