Hamilton striker Flavio Paixao has accused St Johnstone defender Danny Grainger of repeatedly punching him in a dugout melee during the Saints' 2-1 win at New Douglas Park. Grainger sent the Portuguese player crashing into the home dugout with a challenge and followed him in.

Despite some furore, referee Mike Tumilty took no action.

Afterwards, the Accies player said: "I don't know if the television or the referee have seen anything but it was clear that he punched me.

"Sometimes a decision can change the game. Maybe if he was sent off the game would have changed.

"Of course I expected him to be sent off - he punched me and punched me and punched me in the face.

"When I changed to the right-hand side he was saying bad things against me. It was mind games.

"He wanted to fight and I want to play football.

"When a player wants to fight I just go to the other side.

"Football is played on the floor and it is beautiful when it is.

"But when you want to break legs and faces then I think the guy must leave football.

"St Johnstone only play in the air and it is hard to play against these sort of teams. It is hard to deal with that."

Grainger, who won a bottle of champagne as man of the match from BBC Alba, played the incident down but hinted at a run-in with Paixao.

He said: "It was just one of those things. I went up for the header, won the header and the momentum sort of kept the two of us going towards the dugout.

"I got out the way of it and he has ended up on the floor - that doesn't surprise me that he was on the floor, but that's just him.

"There is always a bit of nonsense going on when we come down here but that just adds to the spice of the game.

"More importantly, we got the three points and I was just happy that my free-kick went in."