Illness withered Vine but he will try to flower today

Saturday 15 September 2012

Rowan Vine allowed his focus temporarily to shift from his duties as a St Johnstone player.

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"I'm hoping to get to one of the big European nights at Celtic Park this season," said the English striker, his attention lingering on the visit of Barcelona in the Champions League group stage.

His appetite for such an occasion is healthy but he will have to content himself with trying to help his struggling side feed off any scraps against the champions this lunchtime first of all. The Perth side host Celtic in the league having yet to record a win this season and with only two points to show for their efforts.

They have hardly been helped by an illness which struck down seven members of the St Johnstone squad this week and necessitated the cancellation of Thursday's training session. Vine had also been affected by the bug – "We played Motherwell in a bounce game the other day and to be honest, I wasn't feeling too well the night before with a bit of sickness and diarrhea," he said – but will report fit to play against Celtic today.The severity of the problem had led to rumours yesterday that St Johnstone might request that the visit of Celtic be postponed until a future date. That was later quashed by the Perth club and would only have punctured the exuberance of Vine ahead of the match."These are the sort of big matches I was looking forward to when I decided to come up here," said the former Queens Park Rangers striker. "I have enjoyed all the games so far but Celtic ones are pretty special. You know they are going to sell out their allocation and bring a lot of fans to Perth. I think it will be interesting as sides have had their chances against them so far this season. There is no reason we can't do well."It was a catch-22 situation for the gaffer on Thursday. It is a massive game and we want to prepare properly but there isn't much you can do when five or six of your starting line-up are missing through illness. It is still not ideal going into a game against Celtic."The casualty list already had Callum Davidson's name scribbled on it by Steve Lomas, but the St Johnstone manager did at least have some good news to relay ahead of this afternoon's meeting. "On the plus side I expect Chris Millar to come back from his hamstring injury and Steven MacLean has had game time under his belt during the international break and he has been looking good."Every time the phone goes I am a worried man. It is like walking around with a hand grenade. It will have to be a judgment call before the game when we see what shape everyone is in. The boys will have to make an honest assessment of how they feel. But right now I am praying I don't waken up to a few more messages from casualties."

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Illness withered Vine but he will try to flower today

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