Drey Wright insists St Johnstone are desperate to ‘put things right’ as they look to start the season with a bang in the forthcoming Premier Sports Cup.
The winger, who penned a 12-month contract extension earlier this month, was part of a Saints side that began with an embarrassing whimper under rookie boss Steven MacLean last summer.
Just one win in the group stage of the tournament, against Alloa Athletic, was sandwiched between shock defeats to Stenhousemuir, Ayr United and Stirling Albion.
But Wright is convinced there will be plenty of motivation amongst the players to make amends in next month’s meetings with Brechin City, Morton, Alloa and East Fife.
Reflecting on the squad’s return to pre-season training, Wright said: “It’s been tough. I wouldn’t say it’s been an enjoyable first week back!
“But it’s always good to see the lads; it’s one of the things you look forward to, coming back in.
“It’s been hard work, as it always is.
“But now we’ve got something to look forward to at the end of this week with a couple of friendlies, which will stop us doing some running sessions!
“We’ve got a few friendlies lined up. Hopefully that will put us in a better spot than we were going into last year’s cup games.
‘The boys know how poor it was’
“And we’ve got a few more bodies in than we did at this point last year.
“The boys who were here [last year] know how poor it was in the cup games. So, we’ll be looking to put that right.
“I’m sure the new boys coming in will want to impress, so hopefully it’s a lot more positive than last year.”
Now 29, Wright is undertaking his 13th pre-season as a professional and his fifth with the Perth club.
He added to Saints TV: “It was easy when I was 17 but it’s just steadily got harder every single year.
“So, this has been the toughest one so far.
“But it’s the same, you know what you’re getting. There are no surprises and no hiding places.
“You just have to get the work done.”
Craig Levein takes his charges north for warm-up games against Nairn County on Friday and Huntly the following day.
After steering the McDiarmid Park outfit away from relegation from the Premiership last term, it will be an early chance for the manager to set his stall out and aim for an improved campaign.
‘Dusting the cobwebs off’
Wright continued: “We’ve got two games in two days and I’m not sure how we’ll approach that yet. I would imagine it’ll be 45 minutes [in each].
“I’ve done it before in my career – I had four games in four days once!
“Games are what we look forward to, getting out on the pitch together, and hopefully we’ll start to see some good patterns developing and things like that.
“But the main focus at this point is the fitness aspect of it, and dusting the cobwebs off.”
