Corcoran – let’s do a St Mirren and stuff Blues

Oct 23 2008 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

MARK Corcoran this week urged Hamilton to emulate his old club St Mirren by landing a shock result against Rangers.

Looking ahead to this week’s league and cup double-header against Walter Smith’s side, Corky is praying Accies can reverse an alarming form slump by nicking a goal at New Douglas Park.

The 27-year-old winger knows that’s easier said than done, but pointed out that the pressure will be on Rangers to deliver.

He said: “It’s a tough game but there isn’t as much pressure on us for those games.

“Don’t get me wrong, because of the run of defeats we’ve had there is a wee bit of pressure on us to show something in the game, but we’re not expected to get something against the Old Firm so we can just go out and play, hopefully put in a good performance and try to take something.

“It’s going to be difficult, they’re a great side, but hopefully we can defend a wee bit better, make life difficult for them, and maybe we can get a goal.

“If we can keep it tight it will add more pressure on them and hopefully we can basically do what St Mirren did to them a couple of weeks ago.

“You can’t go out and try to outplay the Old Firm because they’re the best in the league; you need to try and play a certain way.

“St Mirren showed the best way to do that – sit in, soak up as much pressure as you can, and hopefully nick a goal. That’s what we’ll be trying to do.”

Following Saturday’s lunchtime clash – which will be televised live on Setanta – Accies make the trip to Ibrox in Tuesday’s Co-operative Insurance Cup quarter-final.

Mark expects an entirely different game in Govan, but is hopeful of causing another upset.

He said: “It’s a hard tie but on the day you never know. Hopefully we’ll get a slice of luck, because that’s what we’ll need. We’ll need everyone to play as well as they possibly can.”

Mark was bitterly disappointed after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat by St Mirren, but stressed that it has nothing to do with the fact that he joined Accies from the Paisley side.

He said: “I’m not bothered about claiming our goal. Maybe that would be different if we had won and it was the winning goal, but it’s not worthy of anything just now.

“Losing the game was really disappointing. I thought after we scored we’d maybe go on and get something out of the game, maybe even win it.

“I thought we were the better team at the time and they scored against the run of play.

“But it’s a team game to defend and we didn’t really do that.

“We’ve had a disappointing run lately. We got beat by Hibs when we were the better team in the second half and probably should have got something from the game.

“I didn’t see the Falkirk game because I got injured against Motherwell and had to rest my thigh, and we were beaten by a good Celtic team, so we can have no complaints there.

“But on Saturday it was a real disappointment for myself personally and the team. They’re the teams you’ve got to compete against because they’re the teams that are going to be around you.

“I don’t want to beat St Mirren because I used to play for them though – I want to beat St Mirren because I play for Hamilton and I want us to do well, and not be bottom of the league.

“I’m part of Hamilton and what’s important to me now is doing well here and the team doing well.”