St Johnstone captain Jason Kerr hopes the resilience they showed with nine men against Aberdeen can help them beat Motherwell with 11 players on the park.
Saints were sinners – or at least Murray Davidson and Callum Hendry were – when they suffered two red cards in the space of a few minutes against the Dons at McDiarmid Park last Sunday.
It left them with a quarter-of-an-hour in which to hang on to their 1-1 draw, a goal that they achieved thanks to some dogged defending from Kerr and his colleagues, and brilliant goalkeeping from Zander Clark.
The point they earned for all their efforts was a precious one but it still wasn’t enough to lift them off the bottom of the Premiership table, where they trail Hamilton, St Mirren and Hearts on goal difference.
Kerr is now looking for similar determination when Saints make the trip to Fir Park to face the fourth-placed Steelmen tomorrow.
“It was an eventful game against Aberdeen,” said the central defender.
“I thought we managed to dominate portions of the game, especially in the second half before the (first) sending off.
“We looked like the team that was going to win the game.
“I watched Murray’s red card back and it probably was a sending-off.
“I don’t really know what Callum is doing, to be honest. It kind of kills all the boys when you go down to nine men.
“But I was proud of the lads for sticking at it and hopefully we can do the same against Motherwell.
“It’s a massive point for us.
“It would’ve been gutting to lose having done so well.
“They (Aberdeen) had chances to win it but I feel we did enough defensively to get the point.
“We did defend well but it’s a clean sheet that we still need.”
The bottom half of the division is tightly packed and Kerr knows a couple of positive results can be transformative.
“There are a lot of games before Christmas and we do need to get out of the little rut we are in,” he added.
“We are still bottom of the league but a few good results and we will be right back up there.
“We have the quality in the dressing room to do it.
“It will be disappointing not to have Murray and Callum for the Motherwell game but we have players who can replace them.”
