Whatever the mitigating factors for their winless run that has now reached seven, Joe Shaughnessy knows that it has to be stopped soon.
The St Johnstone defender is confident that the Perth men can overcome their League Cup semi-final heartbreak, and the early exit from the Scottish Cup a couple of weeks earlier, to finish the season strongly in the league.
But for the moment long-term goals can wait. Rediscovering the winning habit is the priority.
“We’ve not been on a good run of results,” the former Aberdeen man admitted. “But in a lot of the games we have created quite a few chances.
“We just haven’t put them away.
“Earlier in the season we were taking a lot of chances but that’s not been happening of late. But I’d be more worried if we weren’t creating chances and if we weren’t looking like scoring.
“We are but the quicker we get out of this the better.
“Where do we need to finish for this season to be a success?
“I think we will just look to finish top six and after that we can re-evaluate and hopefully push onto fifth or fourth or third. We’d be happy with that.”
Shaughnessy was Saints’ best performer on the day, and is fast becoming one of the main men at McDiarmid Park.
His looping first half header cancelled out Jason Cummings’ penalty opener, and gave Tommy Wright’s side the opportunity to regroup after failing to hit the heights in midfield and up front in the opening 45.
There were encouraging moments in that second period, notably Simon Lappin’s wind-assisted free-kick that struck the cross-bar, but sustained momentum proved beyond them.
And John McGinn’s long-range strike was not only worthy of clinching a place in a final, it was also a deserved winner.
“I scored the goal but it wasn’t the result we all wanted,” Shaughnessy reflected. “The better team won on the day.
“Hibs were on top of their game and I felt they deserved it. We pushed them hard but it just didn’t happen for us.
“We made it difficult for then where we could but they have come out on top.
“I think we got away with it a bit by getting the equaliser. I thought that might be it, that we might kick on and get a result.
“It was a chance for us to hit reset at half time and go again. But it didn’t work out.”
Some Saints players felt Liam Henderson dived to win Hibs their penalty, with Alan Stubbs admitting if he’d been the opposition manager he wouldn’t have been best pleased with the spot-kick award either.
Shaughnessy, though, didn’t have the best view of the incident when the on-loan Celtic man went down after Chris Millar stuck a leg out.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t really see it.
“The ref gave it and in any case we got back into the game. Sometimes you get them and sometimes the ref waves play on.“
St Johnstone’s ticket allocation was one of the pre-match talking points, and Rangers’ interest in Michael O’Halloran another.
But neither was a destabilising factor for the players through the week, or on the day, according to Shaughnessy.
“Our fans were shouting as loud as the Hibs fans,” he said. “It didn’t really feel like an away game to me.
“I know there was a bit of hassle with the tickets but we’d put that to bed by the time we came here.
“It didn’t affect us players.”
And on the O’Halloran speculation, the Irishman added: “Personally, it didn’t affect me and it didn’t have any impact on the training ground.
“We just got on with it and it didn’t affect Mikey either. People may think it did, but it didn’t.
“Do I expect him to stay here now? Yes, I would expect so. I don’t really know what’s going on but I hope he does stay.”
Hibs have now beaten three top flight teams to get to Hampden.
McGinn, Henderson and Cummings all lived up to their star billing, and Shaughnessy was impressed.
“On today’s evidence they were very good,” he said. “You wouldn’t bet against them in the final.
“I think if they came up to the Premiership they would definitely be able to handle themselves fine. Today proved that.”
Lewis Stevenson, who was in the Hibs team the last time they beat Saints in a semi-final, said: “That was a tough game. The conditions were hard but we played football the right way. All the players enjoyed it. We got the ball down and tried to play and I think we were the better team and deserved to win.”