HAVING been done out of £750,000 during the week by fraudsters as part of a sophisticated online scam, Hamilton Accies could have done without their Lanarkshire rivals Motherwell cashing in at their expense too. But that is how it went down at the SuperSeal Stadium yesterday, as the home side’s early lead was wiped out by the goals from Andrew Rose and Peter Hartley which allowed a muscular Fir Park side to warm up for Sunday’s BetFred Cup semi-final meeting with Rangers by moving up to fourth, a solitary point behind them in the table.

After Friday’s news that manager Stephen Robinson had signed a contract extension to 2020 and promising midfielder Allan Campbell was tied up to 2021, it was little wonder the Fir Park side should be bullish about their chances of reaching their first major final since 2010. The visitors had far too much of this game for it to go down as what football managers called a mugging, but a watching Ibrox delegation which included coach Jonatan Johansson will have taken note of a physical presence which few in Scottish football can match.

“We can concentrate on the semi-final now,” said the Northern Irishman. “It is a great opportunity and hopefully one that we can take. I watched the Rangers game on Friday night and Las [coach Keith Lasley] was at the game too. We are going into the game confident, as they will be too. We are looking forward to it but all the expectation is on them. We knew what this was going to be so we picked a team to fight, battle and scrap and we did that. But we have a lot of quality too.”

Being defrauded is clearly no laughing matter, but someone at the SuperSeal Stadium yesterday had a wicked sense of humour. Either that or the DJ went rogue shortly before kick-off, when Abba anthem ‘Money, Money, Money’ rang out over the Tannoy.

The home side don’t have their problems to seek on the field either. With Ali Crawford, Gary Woods, Michael Devlin, Georgios Sarris, and David Templeton, all injured, they were unable to stop themselves sliding to a fifth successive league defeat. What good news there was included a first league start in goal for young Ryan Fulton, and Argentinian striker Antonio Rojano finally making his debut after lengthy work permit issues. He would have had an assist for a late equaliser had his fellow substitute Steven Boyd not fresh-air swiped from inside the six yard box.

“We seem to keep playing teams who can find a way to win, but we seem to be finding ways to lose,” said Canning, who felt his team had thus far been unaffected by the fraud issue. “We can’t affect that, all we can do is get on the pitch and work away. But individually we are not doing our jobs well enough and that is costing us.”

A vociferous 2,000-strong travelling support followed Motherwell across Lanarkshire, and they saw the former Liverpool youngster Fulton being subjected to a barrage of crosses. Richard Tait got on the end of one, firing in a left-foot shot which the young keeper did well to touch behind. Hartley almost converted a Chris Cadden corner then Alex Gogic got the benefit of the doubt when he manhandled Louis Moult in the box.

But Hamilton got their noses in front. If Dougie Imrie deserves credit for hanging up a clever back post cross, the lion’s share goes to onrushing full-back Giannis Skondras who controlled the bouncing ball well to fired into the top corner.

The Greek full back, though, was about to blot his copybook. His attempted clearance merely rolled into the penalty area and Rose guided it into the bottom corner with the outside of his right boot from around 12 yards.

It was hardly a surprise to see another cross into the Accies boss finally bear fruit shortly after the interval. Chris Cadden levered it over and it was all too easy for Peter Hartley to tap his third of the season over the line from six yards. Only Ryan Bowman will know how he didn’t make it three after a perfect cross from Elliott Frear but Motherwell are on the march.

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Hamilton 1 (Skondras 15)

Motherwell 2 (Rose 32, Hartley 51)