Ayr United boss Lee Bullen said he was pleased to see his team comeback but was frustrated to fall behind again after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Hamilton Academicals.

United started the game in the worst possible fashion, conceding only seven minutes in as Rangers loanee Kai Kennedy curled one into the bottom right corner.

Ryan Gondoh was unable to get the ball clear, and Ronan Hughes pounced, feeding the ball into the feet of David Moyo who threaded a perfectly weighted through ball onto Kennedy who left ‘keeper Aidan McAdams with no chance.

It went from bad to worse for Ayr on 39 minutes when Sean McGinty was adjudged to have fouled Mihai Popescu in the penalty box.

The ball pin-balled around after a corner was swung in, and the Accies defender nipped in just in front of the United man.

Ronan Hughes stepped up to take the spot kick, however his effort crashed off the bar and to safety, and the score remained 1-0.

Bullen said: “It was a game of two halves, the wind played a big, big part, there was a threat of the game potentially being off on Saturday because of the high winds.

“Hamilton had the wind in the first half, they were the better team. We had the wind in the second half, we were the better team.”

This proved to be the case as debutant Sam Ashford got United level after 66 minutes. The former Crawley man was on the pitch little over five minutes when he was backheeled the ball by James Maxwell, creating space and dispatching a left footed strike into the bottom corner of the net.

That was the end of the scoring and his manager said: “Great for Sam Ashford to get his first goal on his debut but he could have won it as well. He was through one on one with the goalie, the ball just got stuck under his feet.

“It was probably a fair result in the end. It was good character shown from the boys, coming from a goal down.

“We’ve done that a few times the last few games which is disappointing, but they’ve shown they’ve got the bottle to come back from it.”

Ayr will play Partick Thistle tonight and were boosted by the deadline day arrivals of Kerr McInroy on loan from Celtic, and Blaine Rowe on loan from Coventry City.

Both signings have joined until the end of the season.