CRAIG Samson has accused his St Mirren team-mates of lacking bottle against Hamilton on Saturday.

Saints followed up an impressive 0-0 draw in new manager Oran Kearney’s first match in charge against Celtic with an utterly lacklustre showing in their 3-0 defeat at Accies.

If the performance against Celtic brought hope, the St Mirren fans were left with a shuddering reminder on Saturday of a display reminiscent of Alan Stubbs’ ill-fated spell at the club.

“It’s easy to get yourselves up for drawing with Celtic and having a good performance with the bounce of a new manager,” said Samson.

“But it’s about being able to come to places like [Hamilton] and having a set of balls to go and win the game,” added the Saints goalkeeper.

“We didn’t do that. It was a good performance [against Celtic] and we got what we deserved out of the game.

“This week was the same – we got what we deserved. Nothing. We didn’t play well enough.”

St Mirren actually had chances in the first half against Hamilton, with Cammy MacPherson a whisker away with a free-kick and Ryan Flynn and Danny Mullen seeing opportunities blocked.

But when Fredrik Brustad bundled Hamilton into the lead in the 36th minute after Samson could only push Steven Boyd’s shot into the Norwegian striker’s path, Saints capitulated.

Mickel Miller rattled home a penalty just four minutes later when Jordan Kirkpatrick needlessly brought down Dougie Imrie.

“They caught us on the break with the first goal,” admitted Samson.

“The ball fell to the boy [Brustad] and then they got the penalty quite quickly.

“It put our heads down and it was difficult to get back into the game from there.

“We had to regroup but the game was flat from us and we didn’t do well enough.”

Kearney claimed the St Mirren players still had ‘scars’ left over from Stubbs’ spell in charge and was left frustrated at how little oomph his side generated to try and get back in the contest from 2-0 down at half-time.

“We didn’t look like were going to score the next goal,” confessed Samson.

“The manager stressed at half-time that if we scored the next goal we could get ourselves back into the game.

“I don’t think we did enough to cause them any problems at the back.”

Miller grabbed his second and Hamilton’s third in the 66th minute with a left-footed cracker from distance that went in off both posts. It could even have been four, when Boyd struck the bar when put clear by Miller.

“It was a disappointing performance all round,” added 34-year-old Samson.

“We started well and had a couple of chances in the first part of the match but after we were second best everywhere on the pitch. Hamilton deserved their victory.”

The result leaves the Paisley outfit in 11th spot with four points, and with the visit of Hibernian this Saturday and then a trip to Aberdeen, Samson says Saints have to battle back fast.

“It’s up to us to get back together this week and work hard in training to get a result [on Saturday],” he said.