ST MIRREN manager Oran Kearney has called on the SPFL not to punish his side because of the weather by trying to squeeze in their re-arranged game before the split.

The Paisley side’s match away to St Johnstone was postponed due to the poor conditions on Saturday and can’t be played either this weekend or next midweek due to international call-ups.

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Kearney doesn’t think there is a suitable free date between now and April 6 – the last matchday before the split – and instead wants league bosses to consider adding to Scottish Cup semi-final weekend by scheduling the match at McDiarmid Park for the Friday night.

He said: “I can’t see how they can re-arrange this game for before the split as there isn’t a free date as far as I can tell. And I don’t think we should be punished because of what happened with the weather.

“This weekend isn’t an option as we’ve players away on international duty. And some of them won’t be arriving back until next midweek so that’s out too.

“The first available date would be the midweek of April 9 or 10 but that would mean us playing four games in 11 days which I don’t think would be particularly fair. The last thing we need is something crazy like that.

“If it’s going to be that week I’d rather they took it closer to the weekend. There are Scottish Cup semi-finals on the Saturday or Sunday so if we were to play on the Friday night that would make for a decent weekend of football.”

With both clubs likely to be in the bottom half of the table come the split, the game could yet be re-arranged for later in the season. But Kearney says he is sympathetic if the SPFL didn’t want to go down that road.

He added: “I understand there’s an ethical aspect to it. If there are still teams in the mix before the split then I can see why the league would want the game played at the proper time so as to be fair to all the other teams. But there has to be some common sense applied as well.”