Hamilton 2 Motherwell 0:Republic of Ireland underage star James McCarthy scored a goal in each half as Hamilton triumphed in the Lanarkshire derby. The Scottish-born teenager drilled home the opener a minute before half-time, after the hosts had lost first-choice goalkeeper Tomas Cerny to injury following a collision with Chris Porter.

McCarthy doubled his side's lead shortly after the hour mark with an eight-yard strike, securing the three points which allowed Accies to draw level with their arch-rivals at the bottom of the table.

The game burst into life a minute before the break when Hamilton took the lead.

The ball was headed on to McCarthy on the right and the teenager coolly sprinted towards goal and fired a diagonal effort which beat goalkeeper Graeme Smith to nestle in the bottom left corner.

Hamilton doubled their lead as the second half reached its midway point.

The visiting defence completely failed to deal with a long ball launched towards the penalty area, and McCarthy needed no second invitation to latch onto it and roll home his second of the game.

Hamilton captain Alex Neil hailed man-of-the-match McCarthy as the difference between the two struggling sides.

"Two bits of quality from the wee man again and we took the three points. If it wasn't for James playing, we probably wouldn't have won the game," said Neil

The highly-rated McCarthy, who only recently turned 18, played down his own contribution: "It was brilliant, great team effort. It's great but it was a great team performance, everybody was great."