Alex Dyer praised his Kilmarnock side's mentality after dealing with Eamonn Brophy's early red card to beat Hamilton 2-1.
The former Accies striker was sent off after only 23 minutes but the hosts did not let it affect them as they secured a deserved three points courtesy of Nicke Kabamba's 57th-minute winner.
The victory catapults Killie above their opponents in the Premiership table and Dyer was delighted with his players' attitude.
He said: "I'm standing here smiling because every single player worked hard to get the three points today. It was well-earned after going down to 10 men, the boys never stopped and we got the right result in the end.
"That's down to the characters in our changing room, we've got some good players with good experience.
"They dug in and worked hard. It would have been easy for them to drop their heads a little bit but they never did. They kept passing the ball, we created lots of chances and could have won the game more comfortably.
"The attitude has been spot on since we've come back. We've not always had the results we wanted recently but we've still played well."
Kilmarnock dominated the early proceedings and went ahead in the 10th minute through the impressive Greg Kiltie. Chris Burke slalomed past three defenders before the ball broke to Kiltie to fire low past Ryan Fulton.
Hakeem Odoffin equalised for Hamilton from a corner in the 18th minute before Brophy's dismissal which left Dyer confused.
"It's a strange one," added Dyer. "I don't think he went to hurt the lad, it's just a tackle but he's a little bit high. If it was a yellow card then I'd have thought fair enough but the ref gave a red and we had to move on – which we did. It didn't affect us too much and we played well."
Despite their man advantage, Hamilton failed to truly test Danny Rogers in the second half and succumbed to Kabamba's left-footed strike after Fulton had pulled off an excellent double save.
Hamilton had an extra man for around 70 minutes of the game and Brian Rice was disappointed that his side failed to capitalise.
Rice said: "We didn't create enough chances.
"We got into good areas but our delivery, crossing and final pass need to be better.
"We lacked some quality but to be fair to the strikers, they never had any service. I lost count the amount of times we crossed it into the goalkeeper's hands."
