No promotion talk from McLaughlin

Feb 28 2008

MARK McLaughlin insists Hamilton can cope with pressure at the top of the league — because they’ve been there all season.

But he’s banned all talk of promotion, after suffering the heartache of missing out on glory with Clyde in season 2003-04, as Inverness took the title on the last day.

Mark said: “We just take each game as it comes and we’re not really bothered about the pressure. We’ve been top of the league all season, so there’s no use worrying about it now.

“We’re four points clear and people say we’re in pole position but when I was at Clyde we were ahead for most of the season and in the last game we lost out by a point so I know what it’s like.

“That’s why I don’t really want to talk about going on and winning the league, because there’s still a long way to go in my eyes.

“I don’t need to tell anybody here what it’s like because a few of them were at Clyde with me, and Simon Mensing was at St Johnstone last season.

“We all know it’s going to be hard, and I hope we don’t need to go to Dundee on the last day and get something — hopefully it will be done before that.”

Another major step on the road to possible title success will be taken if Hamilton return from Palmerston Park on Saturday evening with three points — the scene of a bizarre defeat in which two own goals left Accies with a 2-1 defeat.

Queens have gone on a good run of late, pulling themselves up into fifth place in the First Division, and McLaughlin expects a hard game.

He said: “Queen of the South away on Saturday is a massive game for us. St Johnstone are playing Dundee so something’s got to give there, and if we can go to Palmerston and get a victory then we could go further ahead.

“We know it’s going to be extremely hard because Queen of the South are a good side and are doing really well just now.

“The last time we were there we got beat 2-1 and it was probably one of our best performances all season.

“To walk away with nothing was incredible, and we were all asking, ‘what happened there?’ — because we scored all three goals!

“Anybody who goes down there gets a hard game, so we know it’s going to be difficult, and we need to make sure we’re up for it.”

McLaughlin was delighted with Saturday’s 3-1 win over Livingston, and hopes it exorcises the ghost of the previous weekend’s defeat at St Johnstone.

He said: “We didn’t get the ball down and play much football, Livingston probably played better than us, but at the end of the day it’s three points.

“We probably played better last week and didn’t get anything. It was a scrappy game but we were delighted to get the three points.”

Mark grabbed his third goal of the season during Saturday’s win, and said: “I always enjoy scoring goals, but there are always bad celebrations afterwards — that’s the problem!”