When the world and his wife were telling St Johnstone that this season had anti-climax inevitably written all over it, the Perth players ignored them.
Instead of basking in the afterglow of a domestic double, the greedy-for-more McDiarmid Park men were setting new goals.
Shaun Rooney and his team-mates want more silverware and a third-place finish in the Premiership.
Now, after getting their league campaign kick-started at Pittodrie and securing a fifth trip to Hampden Park in less than a year by knocking local rivals Dundee out of the Premier Sports Cup, you wouldn’t rule it out.
🔵⚪ @StJohnstone's goalscorers Shaun Rooney and Ali Crawford react to their quarter final victory
🗣️ "Love fitba! Love the cup competitions!" pic.twitter.com/7R7iwWeW6Q
— Premier Sports (@PremierSportsTV) September 22, 2021
“Hopefully we can do it again,” said Rooney.
“I would love to see it and retain the trophy. We’ll see how it goes.
“The fans missed out on so much last season but we wanted to prove we could do it all again this season with them there.
“So far we have – we’re back at Hampden for a semi-final – and hopefully we can take them on another trip to the final.
“We came back in with a desire to finish third in the league and get back to Hampden again.
“We’re already there once and hopefully we can get back in the Scottish Cup as well.
“We want to finish third in the league. It will obviously be a tough ask but we want to be in Europe again next season.”
Rooney’s St Johnstone career came to life at the quarter-final stage of last year’s League Cup. After history repeated itself at Dens, no wonder the competition is so precious to him.
“That’s a few goals now so keep them coming,” said the former Inverness Caley Thistle defender.
“The game actually reminded me of the Dunfermline one last season. First half we didn’t really get going.
“But once we scored, we settled down and then Ali Crawford scored a good goal after mine.
“It was a great ball in from Callum Booth and he showed great desire.”
Good morning 👋#SJFC pic.twitter.com/ny8bYmNmBR
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) September 23, 2021
According to Rooney, there is no complicated secret to Saints’ cup success.
“I think it’s just the team effort,” he said. “Everybody just wants to do so well.
“We go into cup games with the same attitude as in the league. We always want to win games – and get the win bonus!
“Europe took its toll on us a wee bit but we’ve recharged the batteries, are ready to go again and can hopefully kick on.”
Hibs next
It’s Hibs up next on Sunday – opponents Saints have beaten four times in a row, culminating in the Scottish Cup final triumph.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Rooney. “We did well against them last season and hopefully we can do that again.
“We’ve got a good run of fixtures. We want to keep on winning and get higher up the league.”
