Hammell: Celtic defeat will put fire in our bellies

Hammell and his team-mates led 2-0 and 3-2 against the champions but were sickened as two late goals won it 4-3 for the Glasgow visitors who milked the Fir Park victory afterwards.

’Well gaffer Mark McGhee said he felt the post game reaction of some in the Celtic camp had lacked class.

“As you can imagine, winning the game in the manner that they did they were probably over celebrating a little bit,” said Hammell (34).

“I heard a few people shouting and swearing in the tunnel afterwards.

“Emotions run high straight after the game and people do things that they wouldn’t normally do.

“Our gaffer is usually level headed so if something went on it probably went a little bit too far.

“We need to use this as a positive going into the Kilmarnock game.

“It’s not what people want to hear but that’s what we need to do.”

Hammell was understandably gutted at taking nothing from the Celtic game.

“It’s a hard one to take,” he said. “We got ourselves in a great position. Two nil up at half-time you’re thinking you should go on to at least get something from the game.

“But they came out second half, changed their shape and caused us problems.

“They pinned us a back a little bit and we gave away a couple of soft goals.

“But we got back in front again and the goal that they scored right after we took the lead again was the killer.

“That really killed us off. I think we can do better there.

“When we scored, it was a great goal from our part. It was a great finish from Lionel.

“You’re thinking ‘that’s us back in the game’. We can manage the game a little bit better and take our time when we need to.

“Pick them off when we win the ball back and can we keep it for two or three passes and get ourselves up the pitch?

“I don’t think we did that well enough. Then they continued with the pressure and scored again.

“We are absolutely deflated after that.”