ALTHOUGH James McFadden was the substitute of most interest to the crowd at McDiarmid Park, three others had a much bigger impact than the former Scotland favourite as his new side suffered their fourth straight league defeat.
Lee Croft, whose performance defied a girth best described as fairly generous, sparked St Johnstone's revival when he appeared on the hour. His side looked good for a point, if not all three. Instead, St Mirren substitutes Ross Caldwell and Adam Drury combined to ensure the late winner went instead to their side.
The outcome confirmed one of football's paradoxes in that the visitors have played much better than they did at Perth, yet come away with absolutely nothing to show for their efforts. They did not deserve to win this one, even if the two goals by Drury and Jason Naismith were struck with huge accomplishment.
St Johnstone, who were already in the ascendancy when central defender Steven Anderson equalised from a Scott Brown corner, claimed that two disallowed goals, one in each half, should have been allowed to stand. The first was ruled out for an alleged foul on St Mirren goalkeeper Marian Kello, the second even more contentiously when Brian Graham was deemed to be offside after finishing an excellent move prompted by McFadden and Simon Lappin.
The home manager Tommy Wright said he had spoken to referee Don Robertson about the perceived injustices, but refused to blame them for the defeat. His finger was instead pointing in the direction of his players for the two goals - Michael O'Halloran lost possession to Sean Kelly in the build-up to Naismith's first, and the home defence was left badly exposed for the second.
Wright, nevertheless, was happy with McFadden's contribution. The former Motherwell player was given a 45-minute run-out with the youth team after signing for the Perth side, but his appearance at the start of the second half was his first at this level since a 1-0 win at Pittodrie in the final match of last season.
"He will do well for us," Wright said. "You saw the pass he put in for the disallowed goal, when you can clearly see he [Graham] is at least a yard onside. He'll create things and I was happy with his 45 minutes for us."
McFadden looked trim and in shape, if lacking match practice and guilty of a heavy first touch when presented with an early chance to score by Graham. Only time will tell whether the 31-year-old is the answer to St Johnstone's problems caused by the transfer of Stevie May and injury to Steven MacLean.
While Wright has invested his faith in McFadden's experience, Tommy Craig was at pains to emphasise that only three of his 18 players stripped for this match were over the age of 22. The St Mirren manager has been around the block, and was canny enough to present this as a deliberate policy rather than anything to do with budgets in Paisley.
One of his young guns, 20-year-old Naismith, seemed, bizarrely, to be giving a midweek haircut the credit for his stunning first-half strike from almost 30 yards. A more appropriate cut-back tribute would have been in the direction of Kelly, who set up the chance with a low backward ball from near the goal-line, but in any event Naismith's first-time screamer was in stark contrast to the relentless mediocrity of the first half. "My hair was getting in my eyes and my sister was giving me grief after playing against Celtic," the newly shorn Naismith said of his £9 - plus £1 tip - visit to a Paisley salon. "I got a couple of goals last season but I can safely say that's the best I've scored." Eat your heart out, Delilah.
Like his manager, Naismith was happy to admit that St Mirren have performed much more deservingly this season without getting one point, never mind the win. "We have played better than that and lost - at Motherwell in our first game, and Dundee at home," he pointed out. "Hopefully we've now turned the corner."
The win offered St Mirren further respite from their terrible start in the league under Craig and in contrast to St Johnstone they have lost just one of their last four games - and that only narrowly to Celtic. They now have Motherwell, in addition to Ross County, beneath them in the table.
Just above them, although two points better, are St Johnstone. They must now wait until after the international break to try to rectify matters.
"Its not been great the last few months," admitted Croft, "and it's slightly disappointing we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to put it right."
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