Morton: Dougie Imrie wary of 'hurt' Hamilton threat

Imrie brings his side back to New Douglas Park for the second time in a fortnight as they look to follow up on their convincing 1-0 win in the SPFL Trust Trophy against John Rankin's men, who have been left licking their wounds after two poor performances at home, the latest a 3-1 loss to Falkirk in another Friday night clash.

Ton were rampant against Accies last time around (Image: Gary Bradley) And the Cappielow boss wants to carry on building up a head of steam as his side head into the game off the back of a run that's seen them lose only once in their last five outings.

"We want to keep building," he told the Tele.

"We're aware that Hamilton may still be hurting from their last two results.

"We know they'll be looking to try and produce a reaction, so we need to be at our best to prevent that. For us, though, it's about continuing our form from the last three or four games.

"It's been good in terms of our performance levels. Last week at Dunfermline we had to show a different side. We were good in spells but defensively we had to be at it and I thought that did fantastically well to keep a clean sheet.

"We want to go Hamilton and win again. There's no question about it.

"It was the same last week when we went to Dunfermline; we wanted to go there and win the game, but we only came away with a point.

"If we can go there and come away with all three, it'd be great heading into the midweek home game against Queen's Park.

"They are in a little bit of bad form just now and will be looking to turn it around. But we have to go there with the confidence within the group, off the back of the performance we put in a fortnight ago.

"But that doesn't change our outlook heading into the game. We need everyone to be at it, confident and working hard for each other on and off the ball."

Imrie insists there was plenty to be positive about from the trip to East End Park.

He says his side defended heroically under testing circumstances as Dunfermline had them under the cosh for long periods.

"I think people forget that sometimes you need to defend," he added. "You won't have things your own way every week, for whatever reason.

"I thought that in the first half we had good spells, albeit it was pretty even. Second half saw us start quite slowly, which gave Dunfermline a bit of impetus with their fans behind them.

"They grew in the second half but again i give a lot of credit to my players for the way that they defended. Gary Woods has made a couple of good saves and Zak Delaney has made two blocks on the line.

"There were a few opportunities that we could've done better with. But I just thought at times we were just too eager to find that next pass that wasn't on."