As St Johnstone’s Liam Craig prepares to make his 200th appearance for the club on Saturday, the Saints midfielder feels privileged to have been part of something special in Perth.
The 25-year-old hasn’t looked back since moving to McDiarmid Park on loan from Falkirk back in December 2007 and has established himself as one of the first names on the team sheet.
Craig will pass an incredible milestone when he pulls on the Saints jersey against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park and he spoke of his pride in helping maintain the Perth club’s upward progress in recent years all the way through from the First Division to the heady heights of the SPL’s top six.
”That’s five years next month I’ll have been at the club, so I’m delighted to average 40 games a season,” he said. ”It’s great to play that many games and I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve not been dealt many injuries.
”If you take the suspensions away I probably would have made the 200-mark 25 games ago!
”Even when I signed on loan, we were maybe 10-15 points behind Hamilton in December and we were behind Dundee as well at the time,” said Craig.
”We weren’t going to win the league that year but they spoke about how we were going to win the league the season after.
”As St Johnstone do, we didn’t have a great start but we managed to win the league, and then to finish eighth the first two seasons in the SPL and get into the top six the next year just shows that the club have gone in the right direction.
”The hard work they’ve put in has paid off, and Steve and Tommy have definitely come in and carried that on. There’s no reason why we can’t go even further this year.”
The weather has put paid to manager Steve Lomas’ best laid plans this week, with the postponement of Tuesday’s U20 fixture scuppering midfielder Paddy Cregg and striker Craig Beattie’s hopes of getting in some much needed game time as they recover from injury.
Thursday’s heavy rain meant training was moved to the astroturf at Stirling University, prompting Murray Davidson to sit out due to his knee, while Kevin Moon and Jamie Adams will miss the trip to Rugby Park through injury.
Lomas and assistant Tommy Wright took in Kilmarnock’s 3-3 draw at Tannadice last Friday night and he was impressed with what he saw.
”I thought they were excellent first half and they have a very attacking line-up,” he said. ”They’ve got Paul Heffernan and Cillian Sheridan up front, and three very attacking boys behind them, Gary Harkins, Borja Perez and Liam Kelly in behind, so it’ll be a tough game although Kelly is out injured.
”They’ve got a lot of attacking threat so you’ve certainly got to defend well against them.”