Delighted Dundee boss Jim McIntyre heaped praise on hat-trick hero Kenny Miller after the striker fired his team to a 4-0 win over Hamilton.
Miller, who turns 39 two days before Christmas, turned back the years with a man-of-the match display at Dens to secure his club’s first home league win of the season.
He scored the first, second and fourth goals, with Jesse Curran grabbing number three.
McIntyre said: “He is a goalscorer and Kenny has been a goalscorer all his career.
“Everybody goes on about how fit a guy he is but it’s important that we try to make sure we are giving him service.
“We need to take more risks and get crosses into the box. That happened tonight.
“It is fantastic to get a hat-trick and he says it is either the seventh or eighth of his career.
“So to do that at the age of 38 – he deserves a lot of credit.
“I am delighted for him and more so for the whole team.”
McIntyre was also quick to praise Miller’s teammates for securing three points that moved them to within one of second-bottom St Mirren in the Premiership table.
“It gets the monkey off the back, having not won at home,” said McIntyre.
“That stat is gone and thank goodness for that. It is also three games unbeaten and we are coming into a really tough period.
“First and foremost we wanted to win the game. It didn’t matter how we did it but to score four goals was fantastic.
“We got a wee bit of luck with a couple of deflections but the most important thing for me was that we were trying to do the right things in the right areas.
“There has definitely been progress. It was clear to see that tonight.
“I thought the players showed a great hunger at times even though it was sometimes scrappy.
“Games at this level are difficult to win but we got the breaks at the right times.
“I thought you could see a confidence appear in our play when we scored the second and third goals. We started to knock the ball about nicely.”
There was a late injury blow for Dundee, though, with central defender Darren O’Dea unable to complete the match.
McIntyre said: “Picking up the injury for Darren is a blow.
“It is too early to say in terms of the severity of the injury but I think he has a small tear in his groin.”
