Hamilton may be the team with Academical in their name but St Johnstone were the smart ones at New Douglas Park.
Their performance on Saturday was as streetwise as it comes, with Saints cleverly plotting their way to a superb 4-2 victory.
The home team had their visitors under a lot of pressure for most of the first half, pinning the Perth team back but squandering every scoring opportunity that came their way.
The pick of the misses were a point-blank shot from Christian Nade that was blocked brillinatly by keeper Alan Mannus and a Jesus Garcia Tena freekick that was also well saved.
Brain won over brawn, though, when Tommy Wright’s team hit Hamilton on the break just four minutes before half-time.
They took the lead with a well-worked goal that saw Brian Easton race up the left wing then send over a perfect cross that was headed home from six yards by Graham Cummins.
Having finished the first half strongly, Saints started the second in the same fashion.
They waited just four minutes before going 2-0 up.
Cummins grabbed his second of the game when he pounced on the loose ball after Michael McGovern had saved a shot from Michael O’Halloran.
There was nothing the goalie could do as the Irishman blasted the rebound into the net.
St Johnstone made it three on 63 minutes thanks to David Wotherspoon staying alert after McGovern had fumbled a Cummins cross and picking his spot with a curling shot from eight yards.
O’Halloran then quickly made it party time for the punters who had travelled through from Perth with a brilliant 20-yard strike that must have burned McGovern’s fingers as it flew past them.
Garcia Tena grabbed a double for Accies with an 80th-minute freekick then a penalty two minutes from time that was conceded by Murray Davidson.
However, it was still a comfortable win for Saints, who moved up to fourth spot in the Premiership and now sit just five points behind one-time championship challengers Aberdeen.
Saints’ right-back Darnell Fisher admitted he was pleasantly surprised to see Saints race away from their hosts after the early exchanges.
“I didn’t see that scoreline coming after the way we started,” admitted Fisher.
“We were lucky to get the opening goal against the run of play but it was great work by Brian Easton, while Graham Cummins is on fire just now.
“Having managed to hang in there during the first half, it was good to get the goal and we pushed on in the second half.
“It was a streetwise performance because we knew it was going to be tough, especially after beating them 4-1 at McDiarmid earlier in the season.
“We came with the right mentality and we knew we would have to dig in at times and we did that well.
“Also, Alan Mannus played very well for us in goal and was unlucky with the freekick.
“He did really well and we needed him to keep us in the game and he did it thankfully.”
Accies keeper McGovern, who has been keeping Mannus out of the Northern Ireland team and was watched by his national boss Michael O’Neill on Saturday, rued his side’s failure to capitalise on their early dominance.
“It was a strange game,” said McGovern.
“We dominated in the first half and created a lot of chances and they scored with their first real attack.
“We needed to score when we were on top.
“We conceded an early goal in the second half and we had a 15 or 20 minute spell where we lost our way a bit and conceded the rest of the goals.
“We did show a bit of character to come back into it near the end so there were positives.”
There may have been some positives for Hamilton but there were many more for Saints.
If you could wave a magic wand and make the October 17 home loss to Partick Thistle disappear, then they would be the Premiership’s form team with six brilliant wins on the bounce.
Indeed, that 2-1 defeat to the Jags almost looks odd placed among victories over Rangers, Dundee United, the annihilation of Aberdeen, and three straight successes over Inverness, Morton and now Hamilton.
Little wonder, then, that McDiarmid manager Wright was a happy man on Saturday.
He said: “It’s five away wins in a row and eight wins from our last 11.
“We have put ourselves in a great position but we’re not going to predict where we’re going to finish because we know how difficult a league this is.
“Some players from some clubs say they are going to finish in the top six or the top four. We don’t do that.
“But we are in a good position and compared to where we were at this stage last season, we are five or six points better off.
“Hopefully, we cement our position in the top six.”