He may only be at Dunfermline on loan but Kyle Hutton says he is wholly committed to helping the Pars survive in the SPL.
The Rangers midfielder’s actions backed up his words in Paisley on Saturday with a battling performance in a truly astonishing game of football.
Dunfermline twice came back from the dead to haunt a home side who must have thought they had done enough to achieve a victory.
Whether the point secured by the Pars will ultimately help resurrect their survival hopes remains to be seen, although they have now cut the gap on relegation rivals Hibs who lost on Sunday at home against Kilmarnock to six points with four games remaining.
Hutton said: ”Considering the way we came from behind, we are happy with the point we got. At times in the game, we looked dead and buried but the lads showed great character coming back so we are fairly pleased to get a draw.
”However, it isn’t often you score four and not get a win. That’s what we need to put right. We do create a lot of chances going forward but we gave away a couple of stupid goals. We just have to go away and work on that side of it.
”Hopefully, we can tighten things up and then take the confidence of creating chances through to the end of the season. It could be a massive point for us and hopefully it will help us be in touching distance of Hibs when we go and play them.”
He added: ”This is the first time in my career I have been involved in a relegation battle. There is that added bit of pressure as every game is a cup final for all the boys as there are jobs on the line. However, I think they are handling that fine.”
Hutton certainly played his part in a thrilling match. There were goals galore, a bucketful of close things and the match was a real treat for the fans.
There were just four minutes on the clock when the Pars defence was caught square and Nigel Hasselbaink raced through before skipping inside Alex Keddie to finish neatly past Chris Smith in the Dunfermline goal.
To their credit, Jim Jefferies’ men didn’t allow that early setback to affect them greatly and fashioned a series of chances before finally equalising in the 24th minute with an absolute cracker.
Former Rangers player Jordan McMillan cut inside off the right flank and curled an unstoppable effort past St Mirren keeper Craig Samson from 20 yards.
McMillan almost went from hero to zero on the half hour mark when he clattered into Dougie Imrie.
Continued…
He was fortunate to only pick up a yellow card but injured himself in the collision and failed to emerge for the second half.
The rest of the Pars players trooped out after the restart still shaking their heads at losing the second goal in the 43rd minute.
Skipper Austin McCann had played his side into trouble instead of, as his manager insisted, ”hoofing it up the park” and a couple of passes later Graham Carey flighted over a tempting cross for Steven Thompson to head past Smith.
The second half was just two minutes old when Dunfermline failed to deal with another cross, with Thompson again being the head boy to extend the home side’s lead to 3-1.
Back came the Pars and in the 56th minute, Davie Graham played a neat one-two with Martin Hardie before calmly firing the ball into the back of the net.
However, 11 minutes later, sub Joe Cardle was robbed of possession by David Van Zanten and the ball was delivered into the feet of Thompson who finished crisply to clinch his hat-trick.
That appeared to be that but shortly after, Graham found Liam Buchanan on the right of the St Mirren box.
The odds looked against the diminutive striker but he lashed the ball high into the roof of the net past the stunned Samson.
Jefferies threw on yet more strike power in the shape of Andy Barrowman and Andy Kirk and it was the latter who snatched the dramatic equaliser with just two minutes of normal time remaining.
Cardle swung in a cross from the Dunfermline left and the veteran Northern Ireland striker sent a glancing header into the back of the net to the delight of the 300 Pars fans behind the goal.
Jefferies praised his side’s commitment but lamented that mistakes continue to cost them dear.
He said: ”We played with virtually four attackers as it was a game we were desperate to win. But we shouldn’t be scoring four goals away from home and not win the game. A lot of it was of our own making.
”I have never had a problem with their commitment but we keep making mistakes and at this level you will be punished for them. We will keep believing, though.”
St Mirren boss Danny Lennon didn’t pull his punches over his side’s failure to win the game.
He said: ”I’m absolutely livid not to take maximum points after having the game sewn up on a number of occasions. We didn’t keep possession and do the right things. I’m very, very angry because it was a wonderful opportunity missed.”