THIS has, regardless of how their Scottish Cup semi-final against St Johnstone at Hampden pans out tomorrow afternoon, been an extraordinarily successful season for St Mirren by their standards.

They have reached the last four of both of the cup competitions –Livingston beat them 1-0 in the Betfred Cup back in January – and just missed out on a top six Premiership place in their final fixture before the split.

Coming up short on those occasions, though, has still rankled the Paisley club’s manager Jim Goodwin greatly. He has no desire to suffer another crushing disappointment this weekend.  For the Irishman, there is no honour in a gallant failure.

Goodwin, who skippered St Mirren to wins over Aberdeen Celtic and Hearts en route to League Cup glory back in 2013, believes they should be challenging for silverware. He has this week stressed to his men the importance of grasping the opportunity they have with both Celtic and Rangers once again being absent.

“We’re not just satisfied to get to this stage,” he said. “We need to aspire to go further. We want to get to a final and give ourselves an opportunity to win a trophy. I don’t want to be a nearly team. We need to do whatever it takes to get the job done and find a way to get through.

“I think we’re due a little bit of good luck on Sunday. Some people say you make your own luck, but we could go back over some of the results that led to us missing out on top six and the circumstances as well. 

“You look back to the Covid situation where we lost five or six on the spin, having to play without recognised goalkeepers and bringing in a loan player. If that game had been postponed and common sense prevailed, that might have been the game where we got the point that was required. 

“Top six was the main goal this season. I spoke long and hard about it and we did miss out so I take that one on the chin. Going far in cup competitions is something we should always aspire to anyway.

“Getting to the semi-final of the Betfred was great, but now we want to go one step further in the big one, which is the Scottish Cup. If we can do that then it would be a great achievement from the group and hopefully give our fans at home something to really cheer on.” 

Goodwin added: “We’ve spoken about it already.  We want to be recognised as winners. We want to be recognised as a successful team and a successful club. Not a team that gets to big occasions and chokes. 

“We want to be able to go to Hampden on Sunday and have a little bit of swagger about us, a little bit of confidence and belief that we belong in this situation, and just give a far better reflection of the all-round team than what we did against Livingston in the League Cup semi-final. 

“I think the more often you get to these types of games, the better the group handles the situation.  I don’t think we handled the occasion well enough last time round. This time, the guys have got that experience to draw on and hopefully that will show on Sunday.” 

That four St Johnstone players have been ruled out of the semi-final following two positive coronavirus tests would appear to hand St Mirren an advantage. However, Goodwin feels that his opposite number has such a strong squad and a tried and tested system that it will not impact on them significantly.  

“We have great sympathy for them,” he said. “We hope the players involved are well first and foremost, that they're asymptomatic and we hope none of their families have been affected by it either. Football always needs to take a backseat at times like this.

"We've been there, nobody needs to tell me what it's like. I don't think there's anyone more affected by Covid this season than us. In September and October we were travelling to games with 13 fit players, two keepers on the bench at times.

"We played Hibs in Paisley and three hours before kick-off we didn't know if we have a goalkeeper available or not. We were still being told to go and play the game. It's a hard time for St Johnstone, no doubt their training schedule will have been disrupted.

"But listen, they're probably grateful that they've had two positive cases and only had two close contacts. They've come off pretty well considering it could have wiped out another eight or nine players really.

"Callum's got a good squad there. I don't know the names of who's out. Whoever it is, Callum have very good replacements there and they've shown that already. They made a lot of changes for the Hibs game recently at Easter Road and won comfortably."

Goodwin has, in stark contrast to Davidson, received good news in the build-up to the semi-final with Eamonn Brophy, Dylan Connolly, Ryan Flynn, Marcus Fraser and Jon Obika all being passed fit to play. He is hopeful his men can give a better account of themselves than they did the last time they travelled to Mount Florida.

“Maybe nerves played a part in the whole group,” he said. “This time round, I think it will be different, I do. The guys will remember that feeling of disappointment and regret after the game.  We are going to go there on Sunday and have a great go and see what the final outcome is.

“I thought it was a very even game. As soon as Livingston got the cheap free-kick and scored the goal, which was poor defending from us, they kind of came off the game and made it difficult for us to break them down. They deservedly went through. 

“But I believe we are going into this game with a far stronger and healthier squad. I think Jake Doyle-Hayes was suspended for the Livingston game and he’s been a big player for us. We are definitely going in with far better options. Hopefully that will come to fruition at the weekend.”