Selecting Nicky Clark for his match-day squad in Aberdeen was no “token gesture” by St Johnstone manager, Steven MacLean.
And if the Perth side are chasing a goal in this weekend’s clash with Motherwell, the former Rangers and Dundee United man could well get Premiership game-time for the first time in eight months.
Clark’s progress along the comeback trail was further enhanced by minutes in a closed-doors match last week.
And MacLean now has confidence that he’s got a “natural scorer” on the bench to turn to if the circumstances suit.
“Clark and (Chris) Kane both got an hour in a bounce game,” said the Saints boss.
“We’ll build Nicky up with training and try and work him as hard as we can.
“But we’ve got to be careful we don’t work him too hard.
“We need to watch what we do. It really is a case of managing him.
“He can’t do more than two days in a row at times.
“We want to accelerate him as quickly as we can.
“Hopefully he gets a good week’s training then we can assess him at the end of the week, see how he’s looking and if he’s ready for competitive minutes or not.
“That’s what we’ve got to go with.”
MacLean added: “Against Aberdeen it probably just wasn’t the right game for him to come on.
“When you’re looking for a goal it might be the one.
“But Aberdeen were starting to put balls in the box.
“In training, you can see he’s still the most natural scorer we’ve got – him and (Luke) Jephcott.
“He’s good in the air, stands in the right areas. He knows what he’s doing.
“Before Aberdeen, he trained really well. You could see the experience a player of his ilk brings to things.
“No one is on the bench for a token gesture, we’ve got a competitive squad now.
“You need to train well, so it’s up to you whether you’ve done well enough to be on the bench or to play.”
Meanwhile, Dan Phillips is unlikely to feature against Motherwell.
“Saturday might come too soon for Dan,” MacLean reported. “We will assess him during the week.
“We’d like to think he’d be OK for St Mirren. He’s getting better.”
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