Ali Crawford says that he is over the heartache of being released by Hearts as a youngster, and his focus is now on helping Hamilton to beat them on Saturday.

Crawford scored a wonder-strike in a virtuoso display the last time the sides met as Accies prevailed at New Douglas Park.

His celebration on the day was a direct reference to the decision made by Hearts to release him as a 15-year-old for being too small.

Whilst he admits it was a cathartic experience, and that games against the Jambos will always have an extra edge for him, winning for Hamilton is now his top priority.

He said: “It’s always going to be there but I’ve done that now, I’ve shown how much it meant to me to score against them and now it’s all about the team performance and trying to get a result away from home there.

“They’re on a good run of form, so they’d be a good scalp to take again and hopefully that will help to push us up the league.

“We’ve shown that we can beat them and we’ll go into the game thinking that we can take points off of them, it’s all about how we play on the day.

“The atmosphere was great in the last game, they brought a lot of fans through and it’ll be a great atmosphere again because their home fans are good, so it will be a good game to play in and hopefully we can get a result.

“It’s always good to play in front of a lot of fans. You want to play in front of that every week and if you want to go on to the next level then this is a good taste of what it can be. It will be a good test for us and hopefully we can get back onto a winning streak.”

Crawford was left frustrated as his long run of consecutive appearances for Hamilton was brought to an end by a recent injury that left him kicking his heels for a couple of weeks.

He admits that it wasn’t an easy experience for him to go through, and he will be looking to take that out on Hearts tomorrow after a defeat upon his return against St Johnstone.

“It’s not the best thing in the world to sit and watch your teammates play, but it’s something I had to do,” he said.

“I had a wee strain in my groin so you can’t really rush back in case you do it again, but it was good to get back playing, although not result-wise.

“I’m a terrible spectator, I was kicking every ball and just willing the boys on to win.

“It was very, very frustrating, especially in the games where we went down to ten men and I still felt we were the better side against both of the teams that we played.

“These things happen though, and we got two good points from those games that I missed.”