GRAHAM CUMMINS will be content to maintain the super-sub tag at McDiarmid Park this season if it means he remains on the goal trail.

The Cork-born forward netted his second goals in as many games for Tommy Wright’s side when he clambered off the bench to negate Ryan Christie’s 9th minute goal which had given Inverness Caledonian Thistle a lead which they had looked unlikely of rescinding for large chunks of this encounter on Saturday afternoon in Perth.

It was his second cameo appearance for the club and Cummins is content to bide his time on the bench until such time as his goals make him impossible to overlook for a start.

“Every player wants to start,” he said. “I sometimes feel that a lot of chances come in the final minutes when we are chasing games and trying to get the ball in the box a lot more. I want to play but I am not going to be complaining or knocking on the manager’s door and saying that I should be playing every week.

"I want to go onto the field and enjoy my football. If I come off the bench and score every week, I’ll take that. A lot of strikers will admit – well, I will – that they would prefer to come off the bench and score than start and not. Any way I can help the team, I’ll take.”

St Johnstone needed all the help they could get on Saturday afternoon. Up against a depleted and skeletal Inverness side – the Highlanders fielded just five substitutes – St Johnstone found themselves chasing shadows for much of it. The visitors were by far the sharper of the two teams and in Christie they had a player who really ought to have bagged a hat-trick.

The 20-year-old has been touted for international recognition by his manager but while that seems like a leap too far at the minute there is little doubting the potential of the 20-year-old striker. Christie opened his account when he capitalised on a hesitant Fraser Wright clearance which allowed Dani Lopez to tee him up at the end of the box and the striker drilled a low ball into the far corner.

It put the Highlanders into the ascendancy and by the time the interval of this game rolled around the game should have been out of sight. Instead, Inverness tired as the minutes ticked by and in the latter stages St Johnstone finally began to emerge from their shell. John Sutton and Simon Lappin made way for Steven MacLean and Cummins shortly after the hour make and it was then that St Johnstone finally started to ask questions of their visitors. Just as Wright may have feared that the final flurry forward was a case of too little, too late, his side snatched something with four minutes of injury time remaining. Cummins caught out Ross Draper to meet with Joe Shaughnessy’s cross and bullet in a header to signal a share of the point.

It was somewhat harsh on Inverness who had controlled the game for such long spells, although the tenuousness of 1-0 lead is always difficult to downplay. Hughes’ side could only lament their failure to convert the chances they created although Draper was inevitably haunted by the late leveller conceded.

“He’s come across me and nicked a header in,” he said. "We were comfortable up until that moment, so it's going to take us a couple of days to get over it. But it was a great finish. Nine times out of 10 he might not put that in

but it's a hell of a header from 18 yards or something like that. It's tough to take but I thought we were brilliant in the first-half, we played a lot of positive stuff. In the second-half, we didn't really pass the ball well enough, we didn't maintain it. But we had 12 fit players training this week, with a couple of trialists, so we were literally down to the bare bones. There was obviously going to be tired legs coming up to 90, 95 minutes. We gave the ball away cheaply at times and maybe didn't track runners but that's to be expected because of the circumstances.”