It would be a stretch to call St Johnstone kings of the comeback.
But recovering from going a goal behind early to beat Motherwell and do the same to draw with Dundee is nonetheless a sign that the Perth side are now made of the right stuff to finish a stressful and arduous season with their Premiership status intact.
Clearly, the plan will be to score first and stay in front against St Mirren on Saturday.
But Callum Davidson knows that these days a one-goal deficit doesn’t bring with it the near inevitability of defeat that was the case for much of the campaign.
“That wasn’t happening before,” said the McDiarmid Park boss on his team’s ability to mount a comeback.
“Those little things matter.
“Apart from Rangers and Celtic, we know we’re competing on level terms with everybody we’re playing against now.
“We’ve got belief that we can score goals.
🎉 👑 | Shaun Rooney with the equaliser on Saturday 👊#SJFC pic.twitter.com/al9PeuxMbf
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 25, 2022
“Obviously, I want us to get ahead in games and play with a positive mindset after that.
“But coming back shows character.
“They don’t give up.
“It’s all positives compared with where we were in November and December.
“Hopefully we’ll take the lead against St Mirren and keep applying pressure on them.”
Home form much-improved
As well as their hard-earned resilience, Saints also have a much-improved McDiarmid Park record of one defeat (to Rangers) in their last six to give encouragement they can beat St Mirren this weekend and close within two points of their opponents.
That Perth improvement been a collective effort between pitch and stand as far as Davidson is concerned.
“Our home form has been very good,” he said.
“The crowd have been brilliant at McDiarmid, as they were at Dens.
👏👏#SJFC pic.twitter.com/Wsj66mfE5B
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 23, 2022
“It was one of the best supports I can remember there. It was phenomenal.
“They’ve been patient with us when we’ve needed them to be because it can be hard to break teams down sometimes, which was the case against Dundee.
“Hopefully we can give them something to shout about on Saturday.”
