DAN PHILLIPS reckons St Johnstone's struggles since the World Cup break have helped build the character that will see them through the remainder of the campaign.
The Saints have picked up just three Premiership points - earned in their win over Ross County before Christmas - since they returned to action last month.
A 2-0 defeat to Rangers was their latest setback on Saturday and Michael Beale's side also ended their Scottish Cup campaign with victory at McDiarmid Park.
Nicky Clark's first half red card was a blow they couldn't recover from but Phillips believes there were positives to take as Davidson's side look to turn their performances into results during a crucial run of Premiership fixtures.
Phillips said: "I think we come out of it disappointed because for 60 minutes we’ve gone toe to toe with Rangers with 10 men and we’ve battled really well.
"We’re disappointed with the result but we’re proud of the performance and he energy we put in. The performance we have was miles apart to the last one here in the summer.
"We took he game to them and got on the ball a lot. We were very confident and positive with possession and in our intent.
"Even with 10 men you could see that we wanted to go out and attack rather than sit back and soak up pressure.
READ MORE: Five key issues as Rangers earn St Johnstone win amid VAR controversy
"I feel like it’s night and day for me personally. I feel much better and fitter when I’m on the pitch – like I can move ad get around and get on the ball. Hopefully I'll just keep paying and stay fit.
"We only take it one game at a time. We always believe we can go out and get a result.
"But it’s been a tough month definitely and for us we are just focused on the next game. I’d say it’s been a character building month.
"You can see from where we started to month to now, he results may not show it but the performances show there has been a lot of growth and development.We’re trying to go on the right direction."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here