Dundee had a point to prove against Hibs on Saturday.
They’d copped a fair bit of flak in recent weeks for conceding some poor goals.
Results had suffered but manager Tony Docherty insisted performances had been good.
That was vindicated with the weekend drubbing of 10-man Hibs.
It was a result and display that had been coming.
Though I have no doubt Docherty was tearing his hair out at the start when his side found themselves 1-0 down in no time at all.
I can imagine he’d been drumming into them for two weeks straight about staying focused and keeping things tight at the back.
Then barely two minutes of league action in and they’ve completely failed on both fronts!
Huge credit to the team for sorting themselves out, though.
Difference
The red card did help but we saw why Dundee have something about them and why Hibs are in such serious trouble.
Dundee are willing to fight for one another and to fight for a result.
Despite a run of fairly poor form, the spirit and togetherness has remained at Dens Park.
Hibs on the other hand looked resigned to their fate.
I don’t envy David Gray in trying to sort out that squad.
But that’s not Dundee’s problem.
They saw a chance and took it convincingly.
Homegrown
The final goal showed what Dundee are all about.
The game was finished by then, a 3-1 scoreline was convincing enough but Lyall Cameron didn’t settle for that.
He didn’t really have to chase down Rocky Bushiri but he did and stole the ball before releasing Curtis Main.
Cameron was impressive and it was great to see two other academy products shining so brightly, too.
Josh Mulligan put in the kind of performance we’ve been waiting for from him.
I was most delighted to see Fin Robertson perform so well.
The other two have had pretty steady improvement over the past few years while Fin came into the team early and maybe hasn’t kicked on like a lot of people thought he would.
Sometimes it happens like that and not all development is linear for a young player.
But we shouldn’t forget what a talented player he is. Docherty obviously hasn’t and has trusted Robertson to be a regular feature in his team this term.
His professionalism and the fight he has shown to get back into the team are impressive.
And it wouldn’t surprise me to see him keep his spot for the trip to Kilmarnock.
Kilmarnock
This will be an interesting game for Dundee – what they haven’t managed to do in the league this term is put a run of results together.
Rugby Park will be a tough venue and all the games between the sides over the past couple of seasons have been tight.
But Dundee will fancy they can come away with a result.
They need to start building some momentum – now is their chance.
Conversation