In the Fair City, this was a very fair result. St Johnstone were thoroughly dominant and won this lop-sided Tayside derby with plenty to spare. Dundee, in their garish away strip, were far from pretty in pink. They were just pretty dire. An early double whammy, from Paul Paton and Blair Alston, put the hosts on their way to just a fifth home win of the campaign and kept them breathing down the neck of fourth-placed Hearts.

“I thought we were the dominant team from the first whistle and it could’ve been more,” said an extremely satisfied Tommy Wright, the St Johnstone manager. “We played with a tempo and when we do that there are not many teams who can live with us. It was a good all round performance and one we should be producing more often at home. We are in a good position and we now have one eye on Hearts. Until we have enough points to get in the top six, though, we’ll not relax. You can’t take your foot of the gas.”

Dundee had kept only one clean sheet in their last 10 games and that came against St Johnstone back in December. Miserly behaviour at the back has not been there strong point. In the opening period here, Paul Hartley’s men seemed intent on producing the kind of generous acts of philanthropy that would’ve made Carnegie look like Scrooge. Within four minutes, the defence parted and allowed Graham Cummins the freedom of Perth barely six yards out but his header under no pressure at all bounced straight into the clutches of the grateful Scott Bain. Cummins’ napper made a more telling intervention on 11 minutes though. From Joe Shaughnessy’s raking pass, he nodded the ball into dangerous territory and the onrushing Paton got there before anyone else to head home his first goal of the season.

With Dundee reeling from that concession, the upbeat Saints came marching in again eight minutes later. Alston unleashed a searing strike from distance which caught Bain on the hop as it fizzed into the net.

The hosts were in complete command. Dundee, in contrast, were as toothless as Albert Steptoe. They arrived at McDiarmid Park with the least number of shots fired on target (85) than any other top flight side this season and that record did not change during an opening 45 minutes in which Zander Clark, the St Johnstone keeper, was so inactive he looked like his was performing a Mannequin Challenge.

At the other end, meanwhile, St Johnstone could have added a third as Danny Swanson released Steven MacLean only for Bain to palm his shot over the bar.

It was all very comfortable for the hosts but within a few moments of the resumption. Dundee finally showed some signs of life as James Vincent rattled in their first shot on goal and brought out a solid block from the hitherto unemployed Clark.

It didn’t take long for normal service to be resumed, though, and the industrious Paton showed that he was very much in the mood with a thunderous effort from distance which just whistled past the upright. As Dundee continued to toil, St Johnstone closed the match out with tireless, impressive efficiency. It was a good day’s work. Dundee, meanwhile, have had better days.

“We’re a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde team," sighed Hartley, as his side's top six ambitions suffered a damaging dunt. "We’ve been excellent at times over the last month but today we were poor throughout. I'm not going to dress it up. We couldn’t get going."