It started with an own goal after just 90 seconds. It ended with a winner in the 98th minute. In between, David Templeton was sent-off, the Dundee assistant, Graham Gartland was ordered to the stands and the referee, Kevin Clancy, seemed to blow his whistle more times than the guards at Hamilton Central while dishing out a variety of cards. It was eventful, contentious stuff.
When it was finally over, Dundee, who were galvanised by the introduction of the terrific Scott Allan, were wildly celebrating A-Jay Leitch-Smith’s injury-time strike. For Hamilton, life after Greg Docherty and Michael Devlin, muddled on as usual. It’s now just one win in 11 on their own artificial turf. Dundee, meanwhile, finally got one over their Lanarkshire rivals after four successive defeats to them. “There’s no better feeling than scoring right at the death,” said the Dundee manager Neil McCann. “We got what we deserved. I thought we were relentless in our push for a winner.”
This prolonged tussle came alive in an instant as Hamilton were handed the early initiative. Danny Redmond’s free-kick was nodded into the danger zone and amid the kerfuffle, Michael O’Hara sliced the ball into his own net. There was plenty of time to redeem the situation, of course, and Dundee, through the lively industry of Glen Kamara and the pace of Faissal El Bakhtaoui, quickly had the Hamilton defence embroiled in plenty of defensive chores. From one of Kamara’s thrusts and lay-offs, Paul McGowan had an effort which was palmed down by Gary Woods before being scrambled to safety.
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After that initial breakthrough, Hamilton’s approach had become all very scrappy while a series of niggly, petty fouls and a couple of bookings did little for the spectacle as the half meandered to an uneventful conclusion. Sofien Moussa had a good chance just before the whistle for the visitors but his wild blast towards the next junction of the M74 summed up the general state of affairs.
El Bakhtaoui dinked a header into the hands of Woods just after the resumption but it was Hamilton who came within a whisker of doubling their advantage just before the hour. Templeton’s delightfully flighted free-kick clattered the post and pinged back across the goal.
Dundee had the ball in the net shortly after that but Moussa was flagged offside before he knocked it in. Then, as things started to get rather tetchy, Templeton was sent-off for a second bookable offence. Dundee upped the ante and on 77 minutes two of their second-half substitutes combined to restore parity. Allan hurled over an inviting cross and Matthew Henvey stole in to cushion a volley high into the net from close range.
The visitors were resurgent under Allan’s composed, considered influence and came bounding forward in purposeful abandon. The lively Henvey had a sniff of a second but, at full stretch, he just failed to connect with Moussa’s low ball across the goal.
The siege continued with Moussa having a header well saved before Henvey thundered the rebound into the side-netting. Allan engineered his own chance and unleashed a drive which Woods saved with his legs before the late, late drama. Hamilton were down to nine men at this point with Darien MacKinnon getting treatment on the sidelines and their resistance was broken when Kamara’s ball into the box was neatly converted by Leitch-Smith. “I don’t know where the added time came from,” lamented Hamilton manager Martin Canning. “I was angry at that. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong today."