St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright felt his team deserved a replay after a gutsy display in defeat to Celtic.
The McDiarmid men gave it a real go against the Hoops in their William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final clash, only losing out to a late Ryan Christie freekick that carried more than a stroke of luck as it flew straight into the net.
It was Celtic’s 34th straight win in domestic cup competitions and they won’t have had many tougher tests during that time than the one they got in Perth yesterday.
Wright, who watched his team draw 2-2 with Rangers in the league a week earlier, said: “I think the performance merited it (a replay).
“All right, Celtic had more chances but we have worked their goalkeeper a lot and had numerous corners. We must have been doing something right in terms of getting forward.
“I thought the performance was better than good.
“We pushed Celtic all the way and we should have done enough to get a draw but we haven’t defended a set-play and that’s cost us in the end.
“I’m extremely proud of their performance but ultimately we are out of the cup because we didn’t defend a set-play.
“We thought we had weathered the storm in the second half when Celtic started it better than us but we had chances of our own, good opportunities, and were a real attacking threat throughout the game.”
Matt Butcher, who had a fine match for Saints, added: “We are disappointed with the way we conceded because we had defended well all the way through.
“We had been creating chances and felt it would only be a matter of time before we created another one in the game.
“Once the soreness of this settles down, though, we will reflect on it and see we went toe-to-toe with the best team in the country.
“If we can take bits of that performance going forward then I think we will do well.”
Hoops boss Neil Lennon, meanwhile, was happy to see his players bounce back from their Europa League loss to FC Copenhagen.
He said: “Some of them were out on their feet at the end which is understandable.
“You know what? They are human beings and they can’t keep churning out result after result and performance after performance. People expect that of them but it’s not easy.”
