A trademark goal from Steve Mallan gave St Mirren a 1-0 win over Queen of the South and to within four points of a play-off place.
Mallan scored with a precision free-kick in the first half and, if they rode their luck in the second half, this is a more resilient St Mirren these days.
After going months without a home league win, St Mirren have now managed back-to-back victories.
"Stevie Mallan is a great talent and I hope to help him improve and I want to invest time in him as he has so much ability and he just needs a few ingredients to add to his game and he is progressing really well," said manager Alex Rae.
"The important thing is that we are battling and there is a spirit in the team and you have to be like that in the Championship as it is very physical.
"The goal was real quality and a good partnership is also developing between Lawrence Shankland and David Clarkson as it is early days as they have only been together for ten days and it's a work in progress."
Queen of the South had their moments and were unlucky not to take anything from the game.
Derek Lyle went close early on and Jamie Langfield produced a fine save to deny Iain Russell.
Andy Webster had to go off injured but, after 25 minutes, Mallan hit the only goal with a superbly-struck free-kick.
Langfield was the busier goalkeeper as Queen of the South started the second half strongly and passed up a number of chances to equalise.
The closest they came was a Ryan Conroy free-kick which struck the top of the crossbar.
"We created a lot more chances than we have in recent games but we just could not get any over the line," assessed Queens' manager James Fowler.
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