Brian Rice wants his Hamilton players to be treated fairly

Hamilton manager Brian Rice accused the Scottish FA of not taking his team seriously and felt they were being treated differently to other clubs.

Rice believes his team are being repeatedly denied penalties and revealed that he had been in conversation with Scottish FA head of referees Crawford Allan to try to discover why.

Rice cut a frustrated figure at the end of his side’s 3-0 Scottish Cup defeat to St Mirren who emerged triumphant thanks to a Jamie McGrath double and another goal from Kristian Dennis.

Rice said: “I want my boys to get credit, it was never a 3-0 game, never in one million years but we are getting no credit for anything. That’s the frustration as we gave it everything.

“Don’t ask me about the penalty as I don’t know what a penalty is these days. I know that every time somebody falls down inside our box it’s a penalty.

“I saw the same referee not give a penalty at Dumbarton but gave a penalty here for less.

“I’m angry as we are getting nothing. I’m fed up phoning Crawford Allan and getting shoved to the side because we are only Hamilton, that’s what’s happening. Am I paranoid?

“I would like Crawford to take us seriously. To give us a fair crack of the whip just like everybody else – because we are not getting a fair crack of the whip. I don’t care what anybody says.

“I have been in football 40-odd years. I know when I am getting shafted. Well, it’s not me getting shafted, it’s my players.

“It seems to be all right for one team to get a penalty and not all right for another team.

“Why? Because there is no outcry. I’ve seen a couple of things happen. I had a conversation with Crawford and he agreed with me, but you cannot publish what we spoke about.”

St Mirren boss Jim Goodwin, in turn, praised Dennis for his goal just two months after it looked like he would be out for the rest of the season.

He said: “It’s great to have Kristian back and he took his goal superbly. We thought he was out for the rest of the season after he had an eight-inch tear in his Achilles tendon but it’s credit to him and our physio that he’s back. If we can get him fit then we have a 20 goal a season striker.”