Martin Canning has experience of playing in the Lanarkshire derby, in fact, he calls it the biggest derby he has played in during his career. Just don’t ask him to remember it.

The Hamilton manager was so focused on doing his job as a player that he immediately shifted his concentration onto the next match after any game, no matter its significance.

Luckily, dad Jim is something of a 'statto', and is always on hand to remind him of the good games he played and the victories he enjoyed.

Canning is unlikely to forget his first win as a manager, which came at the 14th attempt against Motherwell in April of last year.

Similarly, a win at Fir Park in Saturday’s latest clash with their fiercest rivals is sure to live long in his memory.

“The Motherwell and Hamilton derby would be the biggest one that I’ve played in, although I played in the Ross County versus Inverness derby too up there,” Canning said.

“I can’t remember my last game though, never mind that far back!

“I’m not a stats man really. I am with certain things but my dad is the stats man when it comes to my career. He’s switched on, he’s like Scott Struthers when it comes to stats.

“I was always the type that when the game was done, it was gone.

“As a manager though now I remember a lot more and I take in a lot more, whereas when I was a player the game was done.

“Now as a manager you do store a lot more information in your head, but as a player you are ignorant to that. You’re just fully-focused on your own job and when that is done you’re just focusing on doing it again next week.

“My dad will talk about games and I don’t even remember it. He’ll say things like ‘remember you played that pass?’ and I’ll just say ‘no, I don’t!’

“He very rarely misses a game even now, and it used to be a running joke that when he did miss a game to go on his holidays or something then I would score.

“I’d only score one goal a season and he wasn’t there!”

Last Saturday’s defeat at Hearts left a burning sense of injustice among many at Hamilton, with the penalty awarded to the Jambos for their crucial second goal a real bone of contention.

There was further bad news from the visit to Edinburgh as Canning revealed that new signing Dan Seaborne will be out for a couple of weeks after being forced off early in the game with an ankle knock.

Canning is focusing on the positives aspects of a more than creditable Hamilton performance though, and feels it can only be a good thing if his players still feel a little hard done by.

“If their performance levels are good, then they will win games,” he said.

“Whether you win, lose or draw you have to look forward, you can’t look back because you can’t do anything about it.

“If I can use that as a wee bit of extra motivation though by saying they were hard done by, then we will, but there should be no need.

“We played at that level, and if we continue to play at that level then there’s no doubt we’ll win games.

“There should be no extra motivation required. Every game is a big game but when it’s a local derby it intensifies a little bit.

“Training has been good this week, the boys are working hard and everyone wants to be involved in this game.

“This is a big derby and it means a lot to everyone at the club to go and try to win it, and we’ll be going all out to do that.”